On buying a house, part 3
Here's part 4: http://gmp.livejournal.com/513155.html
Here's part 2: http://gmp.livejournal.com/508979.html
Here's part 1: http://gmp.livejournal.com/508752.html
Alrighty. So we did buy a house, it was on our third outing. If I miss anything, jenny_zzz, please fill in for me.
Jenny and I weren't picky. We were mainly concerned with the fact that the house didn't have holes in the walls (we saw one that was missing sheet rock on the bottom half of the entire house), and wasn't having foundation problems. I figured everything else would be fixable. I wanted a two car garage, but I'd take a one car if it was the right house. Little did I know how little choice I had.
We get ready for a third round of house hunting. Around midweek, we plan with our agent, Thayne Sterling, who is awesome, to look around the coming weekend. That Friday, Thayne gets a call from our lender that the State of Texas's down payment assistance program ends next Tuesday. Our lender had no idea either. There was nothing in the paperwork that mentioned an end date, so I don't really blame her.
...
...
What the ****?
To give you a bit of background, the State of Texas has/had a program that provided 5% of your home's value (up to $4,000) interest free for three months, banked on the $8,000 federal tax credit. So, Texas gives us 4 grand, we buy a house, then the Fed gives us 8 grand, we pay back Texas and keep the difference. We assumed that we had until the Federal program ran out, December 1st. This was September! We thought we had three months!
Does that put it in a better perspective? It's September, we think we've got until December 1st and Friday at 4:30pm (yes, 30 minutes before everything closes) we get a call that we've got until Tuesday. We were devastated. This meant that we had to pick a house and we had to get EVERYTHING done by Tuesday, close of business (or so we thought). Jennifer was devastated by this, but she held it together.
Thayne apologized profusely, though it wasn't her fault at all, the State pulled the rug out from under us. We looked at the houses, knowing that we had to pick one. We had a list of around five houses. We looked carefully, but none of them fit. At this point, Jennifer broke down crying. The stress of pregnancy, house hunting, our old apartment's crappiness and the threat of losing our down payment assistance was too much. Both she and I are completely emotionally worn out by the whole process. We're done. We don't really care what the house is like as long as it'll pass FHA and isn't a complete wreck. Unfortunately, none of the houses we looked at that night would pass an FHA or they were complete wrecks. We were at wits end.
However, there was tiny chance that there was a house for us. In the last round of house hunting, we saw one house that was okay but not great. It wasn't in terrible shape, but it wasn't in perfect condition either. It only had a one car garage (which was a negative for me) and it looked like the previous tenants were DIYers that didn't really know what they were doing. The carpet was terrible, the garage had seen better times and there were hairline cracks in the foundation.
However, given the choice between another apartment and this house, I'd choose this house. So, we went to look at it again. Jennifer didn't care anymore what we were looking at. All she cared about was whether we could get financing and whether it was livable. We weren't thrilled with it, but we settled on it.
So, that night, we put in an offer. We had to get this done ASAP because Tuesday was our deadline. We got the offer over to the seller. I'm a little vague on the time line on the following because I was losing my damn mind, but the timing is important. We send the offer on Saturday. We wait. We expect action on this on Monday because we expect the seller to want to sell ASAP, and we need something signed to send to the State for the downpayment assistance. We wait. Nothing. Emails, calls, voicemails, all nothing...
Tuesday morning at 10:30am rolls around. Thayne gets a contract back. They've added a repair stipend to it. They're going to give us money from the sale proceeds to repair stuff on the house. We're a bit confused, since we didn't ask for it and who hands over extra money, but whatever, we'll take it. We sign and return it. We get all the paperwork over to our lender.
She basically says that it's too late. We're floored. We were told Tuesday. It was noon on Tuesday. We thought we had done as we were told. Our lender says that there's no way she can complete the paperwork and get it to Austin by tomorrow morning. Get it to Austin? I said that I could get it to Austin if that was the problem. I could, Jen could, and even Thayne offered to drive it to Austin. Our lender backpeddles a little saying that they have someone driving to Austin that night, so that's not really the problem, but that they can't get the paperwork done in time.
At this point, I'm pissed. Every step of the way, I've played by the rules that people set for me. I'm not trying to zig when I'm supposed to zag. I'm jumping through the hoops that I'm supposed to. I've done my part and I'm being told that it's not enough. If it's not enough, why was I told that all I needed to do were these things?! Eventually, our lender changed her mind and said that there's a chance that they can get the paperwork done today. She said that there were no guarantees, but she'll do what she can. Later, Thayne told me that she told our lender to try harder. Our lender said she couldn't. Thayne said that she wouldn't take no for an answer and kept insisting until our lender gave in and said that she would try again.
Eventually, she got those working on the paperwork to take it home after work. They got it to Austin. They got it in the door in time. They took the paperwork. We were accepted. This means we had down payment financing. This means our loan could be, not is, but could be approved, pending bank confirmation.
Is this the end? Nope. You know how the story ends: we bought the house. This isn't the end. This is the end of part 3. This was the first hurdle. More in Part 4: The Bank Sucks And Sucks Hard.
Here's part 2: http://gmp.livejournal.com/508979.html
Here's part 1: http://gmp.livejournal.com/508752.html
Alrighty. So we did buy a house, it was on our third outing. If I miss anything, jenny_zzz, please fill in for me.
Jenny and I weren't picky. We were mainly concerned with the fact that the house didn't have holes in the walls (we saw one that was missing sheet rock on the bottom half of the entire house), and wasn't having foundation problems. I figured everything else would be fixable. I wanted a two car garage, but I'd take a one car if it was the right house. Little did I know how little choice I had.
We get ready for a third round of house hunting. Around midweek, we plan with our agent, Thayne Sterling, who is awesome, to look around the coming weekend. That Friday, Thayne gets a call from our lender that the State of Texas's down payment assistance program ends next Tuesday. Our lender had no idea either. There was nothing in the paperwork that mentioned an end date, so I don't really blame her.
...
...
What the ****?
To give you a bit of background, the State of Texas has/had a program that provided 5% of your home's value (up to $4,000) interest free for three months, banked on the $8,000 federal tax credit. So, Texas gives us 4 grand, we buy a house, then the Fed gives us 8 grand, we pay back Texas and keep the difference. We assumed that we had until the Federal program ran out, December 1st. This was September! We thought we had three months!
Does that put it in a better perspective? It's September, we think we've got until December 1st and Friday at 4:30pm (yes, 30 minutes before everything closes) we get a call that we've got until Tuesday. We were devastated. This meant that we had to pick a house and we had to get EVERYTHING done by Tuesday, close of business (or so we thought). Jennifer was devastated by this, but she held it together.
Thayne apologized profusely, though it wasn't her fault at all, the State pulled the rug out from under us. We looked at the houses, knowing that we had to pick one. We had a list of around five houses. We looked carefully, but none of them fit. At this point, Jennifer broke down crying. The stress of pregnancy, house hunting, our old apartment's crappiness and the threat of losing our down payment assistance was too much. Both she and I are completely emotionally worn out by the whole process. We're done. We don't really care what the house is like as long as it'll pass FHA and isn't a complete wreck. Unfortunately, none of the houses we looked at that night would pass an FHA or they were complete wrecks. We were at wits end.
However, there was tiny chance that there was a house for us. In the last round of house hunting, we saw one house that was okay but not great. It wasn't in terrible shape, but it wasn't in perfect condition either. It only had a one car garage (which was a negative for me) and it looked like the previous tenants were DIYers that didn't really know what they were doing. The carpet was terrible, the garage had seen better times and there were hairline cracks in the foundation.
However, given the choice between another apartment and this house, I'd choose this house. So, we went to look at it again. Jennifer didn't care anymore what we were looking at. All she cared about was whether we could get financing and whether it was livable. We weren't thrilled with it, but we settled on it.
So, that night, we put in an offer. We had to get this done ASAP because Tuesday was our deadline. We got the offer over to the seller. I'm a little vague on the time line on the following because I was losing my damn mind, but the timing is important. We send the offer on Saturday. We wait. We expect action on this on Monday because we expect the seller to want to sell ASAP, and we need something signed to send to the State for the downpayment assistance. We wait. Nothing. Emails, calls, voicemails, all nothing...
Tuesday morning at 10:30am rolls around. Thayne gets a contract back. They've added a repair stipend to it. They're going to give us money from the sale proceeds to repair stuff on the house. We're a bit confused, since we didn't ask for it and who hands over extra money, but whatever, we'll take it. We sign and return it. We get all the paperwork over to our lender.
She basically says that it's too late. We're floored. We were told Tuesday. It was noon on Tuesday. We thought we had done as we were told. Our lender says that there's no way she can complete the paperwork and get it to Austin by tomorrow morning. Get it to Austin? I said that I could get it to Austin if that was the problem. I could, Jen could, and even Thayne offered to drive it to Austin. Our lender backpeddles a little saying that they have someone driving to Austin that night, so that's not really the problem, but that they can't get the paperwork done in time.
At this point, I'm pissed. Every step of the way, I've played by the rules that people set for me. I'm not trying to zig when I'm supposed to zag. I'm jumping through the hoops that I'm supposed to. I've done my part and I'm being told that it's not enough. If it's not enough, why was I told that all I needed to do were these things?! Eventually, our lender changed her mind and said that there's a chance that they can get the paperwork done today. She said that there were no guarantees, but she'll do what she can. Later, Thayne told me that she told our lender to try harder. Our lender said she couldn't. Thayne said that she wouldn't take no for an answer and kept insisting until our lender gave in and said that she would try again.
Eventually, she got those working on the paperwork to take it home after work. They got it to Austin. They got it in the door in time. They took the paperwork. We were accepted. This means we had down payment financing. This means our loan could be, not is, but could be approved, pending bank confirmation.
Is this the end? Nope. You know how the story ends: we bought the house. This isn't the end. This is the end of part 3. This was the first hurdle. More in Part 4: The Bank Sucks And Sucks Hard.