Home Sweet Home and the Lender that Shall Not be Named
Where should I begin this story of heart ache, heart burn, untold drama, and inexcusable unprofessionalism? Maybe I'll start with this: I'm not saying that our home buying experience was similar to what Job would have faced had he attempted a real estate purchase during his lean years -- but I'm not not saying it either.
As you know, just over six months ago, my wife and I moved from Salt Lake City to the Greater Kansas City area. After renting in Overland Park, KS for a few months, we decided to get serious about looking for a home. First, we educated ourselves by enrolling in a first-time home buyers class at the local community college. Once we felt we had at least a small grasp of what buying our first home would entail, we began to look for a lender. As I sat combing through the enormous jumble of mortgage ads in the yellow pages, I received a call from a mortgage broker in Salt Lake, who had been highly recommended to me by a good friend. I heard him out and liked what I heard as we discussed various financial issues and a possible partnership in our search for a home. He later emailed additional reading material which Brooke and I read together later that night. I felt bad going with the first mortgage person I spoke to, but I had a good feeling about this one, so we went with him, after gaining his assurance that doing an out-of-state loan wouldn't be a problem. We submitted the necessary personal information and he sent us a letter of pre-approval: our ticket to actually being able to visit the homes we had browsed online.
Now, if you are wondering what is so terrible about our home buying experience, read on. This is just the setting of the stage; the introduction of the players; the calm before the storm.
With our pre-approval in hand, we began looking for a real estate agent. I devised a little test to decide who we would use. Brooke had asked her co-workers if they knew of any agents that they would recommend and came back with two names. We also asked people at church and found an additional contact. So, early one Saturday morning, we sent emails to each of the three agents that had been recommended to us. My thinking was, if they are up this early on a Saturday morning, checking their work email, they must take their job seriously. I was sure to include enough information that they would not get the wrong impression that we were going to buy a new home with all the amenities. We waited to see who would respond first. It didn't take very long before Lori Thompson emailed us back, introducing herself and asking what we were looking for in a home. The next email was returned less than half an hour later, and the third didn't come until later that night. When I didn't respond to Lori's email right away, she took it upon herself to call us. She asked various questions about what we wanted, our price range, and which areas we were interested in. Once again, this was the first agent I had spoken to, but I had another gut feeling that she would be a valuable asset as we searched for our first home.
Now, I realize that this is turning into a long posting, which is why I prefer to tell our story in this fashion rather than calling you and telling you personally. You can always come back to this and pick up where you left off, but cell phone minutes can be precious.
At this point I will skip ahead because there is no need to tell you about all the homes we saw. Some were too big, some were too expensive, some were too old, some were too much work, and some were in areas we weren't too thrilled about. The important thing is, we found a home that we liked and we decided to make an offer. Oh, but there's one another important thing about this story: The Lender Who Shall Not Be Named (LWSNBN). Josh, the mortgage broker who had made such a good impression on me the first time we spoke, discovered that his company was not licensed in Missouri or Kansas. But, he brought in a third-party, the LWSNBN, whose company was licensed in our area, and of whom he spoke highly. We set up a time when the LWSNBN would give us a call to introduce herself and discuss our loan options. She missed that appointment. I called Josh and he couldn't get a hold of her either. Josh emailed me the next day to say that she would be calling that evening. But, again, no call came, and I began to wonder if we would work well with this new lender. This time, I called her and she told me that she was on her way home and that all of our information was waiting there. She promised to call once she organized everything later that night, and this time she did. But, I was not impressed with her at all. She came off as a bit of a flake, and a little too casual. Josh, however, did recommend her and I liked and trusted him enough to push forward, though I did make my concerns known to Josh.
As I said, we found a nice, cozy starter-home on an open lot and we made an offer. Luckily, we are in buyers market and everything we asked for (all appliances, including washer and dryer, closing costs, home warranty) was agreed to. We set the closing date for February 9, 2007. It was three weeks away. I scheduled the home inspection which went well. Our home was built in 1949, so it's a fairly old home, but the seller completely renovated the living space upstairs. There were a few minor things that the inspector found, but nothing that would keep us from purchasing the home. All we needed, then, was assurance that the septic system was in good condition, and we would be going ahead with closing.
Unfortunately, here we ran into our first hurdle. The septic system failed inspection. It would need to be completely replaced. Our agent Lori spoke with the seller's agent and it was determined that we would raise the sales price of the home slightly to help with the cost of a new septic, but that the seller would pay the majority. We pushed back the closing date to "no later than February 26," but it could be sooner, if the septic was installed and up to code. Once we knew that the septic would be taken care of, Lori contacted the LWSNBN and asked that she order an appraisal on the home. Had she done so at that time, it would have saved a great deal of grief, not to mention the precious lining of my esophagus that was eaten away by my stress-induced heart burn.
Because the septic system needed to be completely replaced, we moved our closing date back to "no later than February 26," since the lease on our apartment was up February 28. We were really trying for Friday, February 23, so that we would be able to have all day Saturday to move. During the entire process, from the time we obtained our pre-approval letter, to our actual closing, the LWSNBN had displayed less than admirable attributes. She was difficult to get a hold of, at times, and she was always asking for documents or information that we had already provided her. All of this confirmed my original feeling that she was a bit of a flake. But, her antics between the time we discovered the septic and the time we closed go well beyond those of a person who is a bit of a flake and are more closely related to someone who is incompetent.
A little more than a week or so before February 23, the LWSNBN called with some bad news. She told me that when she began working on our loan back in December, her company was licensed in Kansas, and so she could do a Kansas mortgage. But, apparently her company did not renew its Kansas mortgage license because they had not done any loans there in the past year. So, she apologized, but she was not going to be able to do our loan after all. I waited for her to finish. When she did, I offered this little piece of insight: would it make a difference if the house we were buying was in Missouri, because it was. In denial, she responded by saying that everything she has says Kansas. "Well," I offered, "the house is in Kansas City, MO." She quickly looked to verify that her company was licensed in Missouri, which it was. False alarm. But, looking on the bright side, at least I was able to help the LWSNBN figure out what state the house was in no more than six weeks after we made an offer.
Following that little mix-up, everything seemed to go well, and it looked like we would be able to close on the 23rd, like we had planned. We scheduled a walk-through with Lori for the day before just to make sure that all the appliances had been installed and that the construction mess in the basement had been cleaned. Unfortunately, the afternoon of the day before was when the LWSNBN reared her little head again. She called me at home that day and informed me that the underwriter (the entity actually funding the loan) had requested a second appraisal because the value of the house had nearly doubled in less than six months. Now, we realized that this was due to the renovations done by the seller. Nonetheless, she informed me that we would not be able to close Friday, as scheduled. This additional appraisal would take anywhere from 2-5 days. This didn't seem like such a big deal to the LWSNBN, but that was because she figured we could just move the following weekend. It shouldn't have surprised me that she forgot that we had to be out of our apartment by the 28th, and couldn't wait until the 2nd of March to move. She told us she would put a 'rush' on the second appraisal.
In the interest of time, I'll list the major events of the following week:
Monday, February 26th: Nothing happened. I emailed the LWSNBN for an update and she assured me that she put a 'rush' on the order, but that she wouldn't know anything until the second appraisal had been completed. Because I anticipated moving, our phone/DSL service was disconnected, so I worked at the Johnson County Library.
Tuesday, February 27th: Again, I had to work out of the library, and again, nothing happened. I gave the LWSNBN the benefit of the doubt, and didn't bother her because I figured she would call if there were any news.
Wednesday, February 28th: We knew we would need to move tonight, either way. Either we would move into our new home, or into our friends' garage. I was at the library again. I had to sit in the back corner where I could pick up a wi-fi signal that would allow me to access WGU's servers. By lunchtime, we still had heard nothing, so I emailed the LWSNBN: "I assume if you'd heard anything this morning you would have let us know. I'm working at the library again, and I have my cell phone with me. Brooke has the car at work, so she can leave to pick me up at any time. We will be moving tonight either way, but I'd much rather move into our new home than to a temporary storage spot only to move again. I can't believe it has taken this long. It will be one week tomorrow that you informed me that this would need to be done. I am checking my email so much it's unhealthy, so let me know any news you have. Thanks, Todd" You'd never guess how she replied--a three-word email 25 minutes later... "You're killing me!!!" That was it. I didn't know what to think. Was she trying to be funny? Wasn't that a little unprofessional? I was stuck working in a library and she was working from her home, and I was killing her? I had no idea that I had been victimizing her this entire time. About fifteen minutes later she sent another email about how she really wanted to finish this loan too, and how she didn't know anything more than we did about when the second appraisal would be finished. She used a dozen exclamation points, usually in groups of three and four, in her second email. Apparently, she had been sick the day her employer did customer service training, so she didn't know about email etiquette.
Then, finally, at about 3:30 CST, she called to say that the appraisal had been finished and that she would have the loan documents to the title company in about an hour. Hallelujah! I immediately called Brooke and she left work on her way to pick me up. Lori, our real estate agent, called too. Only she had some bad news. The soonest the title company would be able to close on our loan would be Thursday morning. They were totally booked for the rest of the afternoon, and it was going to take them a few hours to put together all of the papers we would need to sign. I tried to call Brooke to tell her we weren't going to be closing after all, but she had already left. Our brief moment of relief was replaced by the emptiness of uncertainty. For Brooke, it was the tipping point. All week, she had been on the verge of breaking down. Just when it seemed that everything was going to work out, it didn't. She drove around for 45 minutes in tears as she came to pick me up. It was impossible to console her. We had no idea what we should do. Moving out that night only to move again the next day didn't seem too appealing. I called our apartment building office and luckily, they allowed us one additional day, so at least we didn't have to move that night.
Thursday, March 1: Brooke took the day off to finish up the packing, and she did an amazing job. Our closing was set for 8:30am. They told us to allow for about an hour, so I figured I would be able to begin work about an hour late. I would have taken the day off as well, but if there is one day I cannot miss, it is the first day of the month. We arrived at the title company with the $500 the LWSNBN had told us to bring. We weren't anticipating paying much of anything, since the seller had agreed to pay up to $3,000 in closing costs, and since we had already put down the $500 in earnest money, and paid for the septic inspection. Unfortunately, the $500 we brought was less than half of what we would need. We had the money. We had been saving for closing costs since we moved from Salt Lake, but we had grown accustomed to the idea of spending it on furniture and other house things ever since our seller agreed to pay closing costs. But, what we didn't know, and didn't learn until that morning, was that our lender had a policy that the seller could only pay a maximum of 3% of the sales price in closing costs. But, like I said, we were able to cover the additional costs. Besides that surprise, all of the signing took much longer than we had anticipated. After all the paperwork had been signed, we went to the nearest QuikTrip convenience store to get a money order to pay the closing costs. But, they let us know that because of a certain anti-terrorism/money laundering law, they couldn't issue a money order, or a combination of money orders that large to any one person in a 24 hour period. We would need to go to the Post Office. So, we drove another ten minutes to the post office, purchased the money order, and by the time Brooke took me to the library, it was about 12:30pm. But, on the bright side, Brooke went and paid the closing costs, she picked up the keys from the real estate agency, and she finished packing. I finished work by 4:30pm, and our friend John Bauman and his family helped us move into our new home that night.
So, that's it, right? We finally closed and we moved our four car loads of stuff into our first home, right? Nope. This story isn't quite over yet...unfortunately.
Friday, March 2: As we ate breakfast that morning, I was so excited to own a home. It really didn't feel like a ton of debt. It felt like a true asset. Our phone line and internet were not up and running, so I decided to try to find an internet connection at Brooke's middle school. We had parked our car in our garage that night. It's a tight squeeze, but at least we finally have a garage. We backed out and pulled out of our driveway on our way to Brooke's middle school. We didn't get very far before we heard a thump, thump, thump, thump and I knew we had a flat. I pulled into a parking lot 50 yards from our front door, and took a look. Apparently, there was some construction debris under the leaves on our driveway and I had driven over a large wire which embedded itself in the tread and the sidewall of our tire. As I put on the spare, I should have been mad. But, I had the Smurf's theme song stuck in my head, and it's impossible to be angry when you're humming along with the Smurf's.
Finally arriving at the middle school, we found a little-used room at the end of the eighth grade hallway, and I was able to plug in and get some work done without worrying about what was going to happen with the home. But then, just before lunchtime, my phone rang. It was the LWSNBN on the other line. At first, I wasn't going to answer because I really didn't want to speak to her ever again. But, I picked up and when I did, she began telling me that there were a few things she was missing in order to fund the loan. She had been having trouble getting a hold of a couple of my past employers to verify my employment with them. I was pretty sure that she should have had this done prior to closing, and not the day after, but I gave her some new numbers to try. Then, she asked if one of us could be home for her to send another appraiser by to verify that the appliances had been installed. Then she started to giggle...I was shocked, but not surprised. "Oh, hehe, I'm sorry, hehe. My husband just put some of those fake tattoos on my two-year-old, hehe, and it's so cute!" Despite the fact that our loan still hadn't funded, she seemed to be taking it well enough to laugh while explaining all of this to me. She also said that there were a few documents that we would need to sign at the title company because they didn't have us sign them the day before. As far as the 'third' appraisal was concerned, I told her that the appliances should have been on the second appraisal. She didn't think they were, but I reminded her that we had gone to the home the same day she informed us that they needed a second appraisal and found that the appliances were completely installed. She said she would check on it. So, I went to the office to get Brooke to go to the title company to sign the missing documents. On my way, Lori called and told me that the seller's agent was panicking because the loan hadn't funded yet and that we needed to vacate immediately. The deadline for funding the loan was in an hour. So, I told Lori that I had already spoken with the LWSNBN and that Brooke and I were going to the title company to sign the papers. I went into the office, explained the situation to Brooke, and we were getting ready to leave, when I called the title company. I was glad I did. Apparently, we had signed all of the documents but one. They faxed it to the school and Brooke and I signed it and faxed it back. Besides the stress and the subsequent heart burn associated with not hearing whether our loan had funded until 45 minutes after the deadline, everything else went well. They let us know that it had funded and that we were finally done. Homeowners at long last.
Despite the rough road to home ownership, we truly are grateful to have a home of our own. It's a great, little starter home. We love it, and we are so thankful to be here. We feel so blessed. The Lord has continually provided for us and taken care of us.
Monday, March 5: I noticed some water in the basement that I later discovered was the septic system backing into our washer, but the septic saga will have to wait for another blog.
As you know, just over six months ago, my wife and I moved from Salt Lake City to the Greater Kansas City area. After renting in Overland Park, KS for a few months, we decided to get serious about looking for a home. First, we educated ourselves by enrolling in a first-time home buyers class at the local community college. Once we felt we had at least a small grasp of what buying our first home would entail, we began to look for a lender. As I sat combing through the enormous jumble of mortgage ads in the yellow pages, I received a call from a mortgage broker in Salt Lake, who had been highly recommended to me by a good friend. I heard him out and liked what I heard as we discussed various financial issues and a possible partnership in our search for a home. He later emailed additional reading material which Brooke and I read together later that night. I felt bad going with the first mortgage person I spoke to, but I had a good feeling about this one, so we went with him, after gaining his assurance that doing an out-of-state loan wouldn't be a problem. We submitted the necessary personal information and he sent us a letter of pre-approval: our ticket to actually being able to visit the homes we had browsed online.
Now, if you are wondering what is so terrible about our home buying experience, read on. This is just the setting of the stage; the introduction of the players; the calm before the storm.
With our pre-approval in hand, we began looking for a real estate agent. I devised a little test to decide who we would use. Brooke had asked her co-workers if they knew of any agents that they would recommend and came back with two names. We also asked people at church and found an additional contact. So, early one Saturday morning, we sent emails to each of the three agents that had been recommended to us. My thinking was, if they are up this early on a Saturday morning, checking their work email, they must take their job seriously. I was sure to include enough information that they would not get the wrong impression that we were going to buy a new home with all the amenities. We waited to see who would respond first. It didn't take very long before Lori Thompson emailed us back, introducing herself and asking what we were looking for in a home. The next email was returned less than half an hour later, and the third didn't come until later that night. When I didn't respond to Lori's email right away, she took it upon herself to call us. She asked various questions about what we wanted, our price range, and which areas we were interested in. Once again, this was the first agent I had spoken to, but I had another gut feeling that she would be a valuable asset as we searched for our first home.
Now, I realize that this is turning into a long posting, which is why I prefer to tell our story in this fashion rather than calling you and telling you personally. You can always come back to this and pick up where you left off, but cell phone minutes can be precious.
At this point I will skip ahead because there is no need to tell you about all the homes we saw. Some were too big, some were too expensive, some were too old, some were too much work, and some were in areas we weren't too thrilled about. The important thing is, we found a home that we liked and we decided to make an offer. Oh, but there's one another important thing about this story: The Lender Who Shall Not Be Named (LWSNBN). Josh, the mortgage broker who had made such a good impression on me the first time we spoke, discovered that his company was not licensed in Missouri or Kansas. But, he brought in a third-party, the LWSNBN, whose company was licensed in our area, and of whom he spoke highly. We set up a time when the LWSNBN would give us a call to introduce herself and discuss our loan options. She missed that appointment. I called Josh and he couldn't get a hold of her either. Josh emailed me the next day to say that she would be calling that evening. But, again, no call came, and I began to wonder if we would work well with this new lender. This time, I called her and she told me that she was on her way home and that all of our information was waiting there. She promised to call once she organized everything later that night, and this time she did. But, I was not impressed with her at all. She came off as a bit of a flake, and a little too casual. Josh, however, did recommend her and I liked and trusted him enough to push forward, though I did make my concerns known to Josh.
As I said, we found a nice, cozy starter-home on an open lot and we made an offer. Luckily, we are in buyers market and everything we asked for (all appliances, including washer and dryer, closing costs, home warranty) was agreed to. We set the closing date for February 9, 2007. It was three weeks away. I scheduled the home inspection which went well. Our home was built in 1949, so it's a fairly old home, but the seller completely renovated the living space upstairs. There were a few minor things that the inspector found, but nothing that would keep us from purchasing the home. All we needed, then, was assurance that the septic system was in good condition, and we would be going ahead with closing.
Unfortunately, here we ran into our first hurdle. The septic system failed inspection. It would need to be completely replaced. Our agent Lori spoke with the seller's agent and it was determined that we would raise the sales price of the home slightly to help with the cost of a new septic, but that the seller would pay the majority. We pushed back the closing date to "no later than February 26," but it could be sooner, if the septic was installed and up to code. Once we knew that the septic would be taken care of, Lori contacted the LWSNBN and asked that she order an appraisal on the home. Had she done so at that time, it would have saved a great deal of grief, not to mention the precious lining of my esophagus that was eaten away by my stress-induced heart burn.
Because the septic system needed to be completely replaced, we moved our closing date back to "no later than February 26," since the lease on our apartment was up February 28. We were really trying for Friday, February 23, so that we would be able to have all day Saturday to move. During the entire process, from the time we obtained our pre-approval letter, to our actual closing, the LWSNBN had displayed less than admirable attributes. She was difficult to get a hold of, at times, and she was always asking for documents or information that we had already provided her. All of this confirmed my original feeling that she was a bit of a flake. But, her antics between the time we discovered the septic and the time we closed go well beyond those of a person who is a bit of a flake and are more closely related to someone who is incompetent.
A little more than a week or so before February 23, the LWSNBN called with some bad news. She told me that when she began working on our loan back in December, her company was licensed in Kansas, and so she could do a Kansas mortgage. But, apparently her company did not renew its Kansas mortgage license because they had not done any loans there in the past year. So, she apologized, but she was not going to be able to do our loan after all. I waited for her to finish. When she did, I offered this little piece of insight: would it make a difference if the house we were buying was in Missouri, because it was. In denial, she responded by saying that everything she has says Kansas. "Well," I offered, "the house is in Kansas City, MO." She quickly looked to verify that her company was licensed in Missouri, which it was. False alarm. But, looking on the bright side, at least I was able to help the LWSNBN figure out what state the house was in no more than six weeks after we made an offer.
Following that little mix-up, everything seemed to go well, and it looked like we would be able to close on the 23rd, like we had planned. We scheduled a walk-through with Lori for the day before just to make sure that all the appliances had been installed and that the construction mess in the basement had been cleaned. Unfortunately, the afternoon of the day before was when the LWSNBN reared her little head again. She called me at home that day and informed me that the underwriter (the entity actually funding the loan) had requested a second appraisal because the value of the house had nearly doubled in less than six months. Now, we realized that this was due to the renovations done by the seller. Nonetheless, she informed me that we would not be able to close Friday, as scheduled. This additional appraisal would take anywhere from 2-5 days. This didn't seem like such a big deal to the LWSNBN, but that was because she figured we could just move the following weekend. It shouldn't have surprised me that she forgot that we had to be out of our apartment by the 28th, and couldn't wait until the 2nd of March to move. She told us she would put a 'rush' on the second appraisal.
In the interest of time, I'll list the major events of the following week:
Monday, February 26th: Nothing happened. I emailed the LWSNBN for an update and she assured me that she put a 'rush' on the order, but that she wouldn't know anything until the second appraisal had been completed. Because I anticipated moving, our phone/DSL service was disconnected, so I worked at the Johnson County Library.
Tuesday, February 27th: Again, I had to work out of the library, and again, nothing happened. I gave the LWSNBN the benefit of the doubt, and didn't bother her because I figured she would call if there were any news.
Wednesday, February 28th: We knew we would need to move tonight, either way. Either we would move into our new home, or into our friends' garage. I was at the library again. I had to sit in the back corner where I could pick up a wi-fi signal that would allow me to access WGU's servers. By lunchtime, we still had heard nothing, so I emailed the LWSNBN: "I assume if you'd heard anything this morning you would have let us know. I'm working at the library again, and I have my cell phone with me. Brooke has the car at work, so she can leave to pick me up at any time. We will be moving tonight either way, but I'd much rather move into our new home than to a temporary storage spot only to move again. I can't believe it has taken this long. It will be one week tomorrow that you informed me that this would need to be done. I am checking my email so much it's unhealthy, so let me know any news you have. Thanks, Todd" You'd never guess how she replied--a three-word email 25 minutes later... "You're killing me!!!" That was it. I didn't know what to think. Was she trying to be funny? Wasn't that a little unprofessional? I was stuck working in a library and she was working from her home, and I was killing her? I had no idea that I had been victimizing her this entire time. About fifteen minutes later she sent another email about how she really wanted to finish this loan too, and how she didn't know anything more than we did about when the second appraisal would be finished. She used a dozen exclamation points, usually in groups of three and four, in her second email. Apparently, she had been sick the day her employer did customer service training, so she didn't know about email etiquette.
Then, finally, at about 3:30 CST, she called to say that the appraisal had been finished and that she would have the loan documents to the title company in about an hour. Hallelujah! I immediately called Brooke and she left work on her way to pick me up. Lori, our real estate agent, called too. Only she had some bad news. The soonest the title company would be able to close on our loan would be Thursday morning. They were totally booked for the rest of the afternoon, and it was going to take them a few hours to put together all of the papers we would need to sign. I tried to call Brooke to tell her we weren't going to be closing after all, but she had already left. Our brief moment of relief was replaced by the emptiness of uncertainty. For Brooke, it was the tipping point. All week, she had been on the verge of breaking down. Just when it seemed that everything was going to work out, it didn't. She drove around for 45 minutes in tears as she came to pick me up. It was impossible to console her. We had no idea what we should do. Moving out that night only to move again the next day didn't seem too appealing. I called our apartment building office and luckily, they allowed us one additional day, so at least we didn't have to move that night.
Thursday, March 1: Brooke took the day off to finish up the packing, and she did an amazing job. Our closing was set for 8:30am. They told us to allow for about an hour, so I figured I would be able to begin work about an hour late. I would have taken the day off as well, but if there is one day I cannot miss, it is the first day of the month. We arrived at the title company with the $500 the LWSNBN had told us to bring. We weren't anticipating paying much of anything, since the seller had agreed to pay up to $3,000 in closing costs, and since we had already put down the $500 in earnest money, and paid for the septic inspection. Unfortunately, the $500 we brought was less than half of what we would need. We had the money. We had been saving for closing costs since we moved from Salt Lake, but we had grown accustomed to the idea of spending it on furniture and other house things ever since our seller agreed to pay closing costs. But, what we didn't know, and didn't learn until that morning, was that our lender had a policy that the seller could only pay a maximum of 3% of the sales price in closing costs. But, like I said, we were able to cover the additional costs. Besides that surprise, all of the signing took much longer than we had anticipated. After all the paperwork had been signed, we went to the nearest QuikTrip convenience store to get a money order to pay the closing costs. But, they let us know that because of a certain anti-terrorism/money laundering law, they couldn't issue a money order, or a combination of money orders that large to any one person in a 24 hour period. We would need to go to the Post Office. So, we drove another ten minutes to the post office, purchased the money order, and by the time Brooke took me to the library, it was about 12:30pm. But, on the bright side, Brooke went and paid the closing costs, she picked up the keys from the real estate agency, and she finished packing. I finished work by 4:30pm, and our friend John Bauman and his family helped us move into our new home that night.
So, that's it, right? We finally closed and we moved our four car loads of stuff into our first home, right? Nope. This story isn't quite over yet...unfortunately.
Friday, March 2: As we ate breakfast that morning, I was so excited to own a home. It really didn't feel like a ton of debt. It felt like a true asset. Our phone line and internet were not up and running, so I decided to try to find an internet connection at Brooke's middle school. We had parked our car in our garage that night. It's a tight squeeze, but at least we finally have a garage. We backed out and pulled out of our driveway on our way to Brooke's middle school. We didn't get very far before we heard a thump, thump, thump, thump and I knew we had a flat. I pulled into a parking lot 50 yards from our front door, and took a look. Apparently, there was some construction debris under the leaves on our driveway and I had driven over a large wire which embedded itself in the tread and the sidewall of our tire. As I put on the spare, I should have been mad. But, I had the Smurf's theme song stuck in my head, and it's impossible to be angry when you're humming along with the Smurf's.
Finally arriving at the middle school, we found a little-used room at the end of the eighth grade hallway, and I was able to plug in and get some work done without worrying about what was going to happen with the home. But then, just before lunchtime, my phone rang. It was the LWSNBN on the other line. At first, I wasn't going to answer because I really didn't want to speak to her ever again. But, I picked up and when I did, she began telling me that there were a few things she was missing in order to fund the loan. She had been having trouble getting a hold of a couple of my past employers to verify my employment with them. I was pretty sure that she should have had this done prior to closing, and not the day after, but I gave her some new numbers to try. Then, she asked if one of us could be home for her to send another appraiser by to verify that the appliances had been installed. Then she started to giggle...I was shocked, but not surprised. "Oh, hehe, I'm sorry, hehe. My husband just put some of those fake tattoos on my two-year-old, hehe, and it's so cute!" Despite the fact that our loan still hadn't funded, she seemed to be taking it well enough to laugh while explaining all of this to me. She also said that there were a few documents that we would need to sign at the title company because they didn't have us sign them the day before. As far as the 'third' appraisal was concerned, I told her that the appliances should have been on the second appraisal. She didn't think they were, but I reminded her that we had gone to the home the same day she informed us that they needed a second appraisal and found that the appliances were completely installed. She said she would check on it. So, I went to the office to get Brooke to go to the title company to sign the missing documents. On my way, Lori called and told me that the seller's agent was panicking because the loan hadn't funded yet and that we needed to vacate immediately. The deadline for funding the loan was in an hour. So, I told Lori that I had already spoken with the LWSNBN and that Brooke and I were going to the title company to sign the papers. I went into the office, explained the situation to Brooke, and we were getting ready to leave, when I called the title company. I was glad I did. Apparently, we had signed all of the documents but one. They faxed it to the school and Brooke and I signed it and faxed it back. Besides the stress and the subsequent heart burn associated with not hearing whether our loan had funded until 45 minutes after the deadline, everything else went well. They let us know that it had funded and that we were finally done. Homeowners at long last.
Despite the rough road to home ownership, we truly are grateful to have a home of our own. It's a great, little starter home. We love it, and we are so thankful to be here. We feel so blessed. The Lord has continually provided for us and taken care of us.
Monday, March 5: I noticed some water in the basement that I later discovered was the septic system backing into our washer, but the septic saga will have to wait for another blog.
what a total nightmare. this makes us very very grateful that our homebuying process was as smooth as it was. good luck with that septic tank!
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