On buying a house, part 4: The Bank Sucks
Apparently I pretitled this installment as "The Bank Sucks and Sucks Hard."
Yeah, I'd say that sums it up well.
Part 3: http://gmp.livejournal.com/510360.html
Part 2: http://gmp.livejournal.com/508979.html
Part 1: http://gmp.livejournal.com/508752.html
Well, after the jump, I explain how I hate money lenders, love my real estate agent, and further prove my hate for large corporations.
This one won't be as detailed as the past few entries because I've much less time in my life lately and it's been 6 months since this happened. Wow, I've owned a home for 6 months now. Jeez.
Anyway, once the state accepted our paperwork, we kind of took a short break. That was our deadline, right? Well, yeah, kind of. Anyway, we took a short break. Nothing much happened as we were waiting on the bank to get back to us.
Around this point, our lender changes. OH JOY! Our old lender's company gets bought out. That means that all the paperwork I did for the first lender gets faxed to the second one and I don't have to sign my name 45 times and send people massive amounts of financial information, right? WRONG. I have to do it all over again. Not freaking happy. Also not happy at anything unexpected, but, knowing my life, I should have expected something bad to go wrong. No, no, I'm not a pessimist, not at all. /sarcasm.
We finally hear back from the bank. They tells us it'll be 45 days before they even *look* at the sale contract. Notice that sentence doesn't contain any timeline on how quickly or slowly they'll approve or reject the contract. FORTY FIVE DAYS BEFORE THEY EVEN OPEN THE ENVELOPE. Our sale contract is for 45 days. That means by the time the bank opens our file, our contract expires.
No, this ain't happenin'. We could get an extension on our sale contract (and we start that) but it won't really fix the problem. The problem is that we have to buy the house by December 1st for the Fed's $8,000 tax rebate. If we don't get that tax rebate, then we don't get the State of Texas's downpayment assistance. If we don't get that assistance, then we don't buy a house. Okay, you ask why that's a problem. If we wait 45 days for the bank to say "yes" and then we have another 21 days of paperwork for loan processing, that would put us at Thanksgiving at the earliest. That leaves around 4 days buffer time. NO ONE DOES ANYTHING OFFICIAL THE WEEK OF THANKSGIVING. Also, how likely is it that the bank just tells us "yes"? How much more likely is it that the stipulate some minor crap on line 37 of paragraph 3 of page 42 on how loud I just farted violates the sale?
This isn't gonna work. Thayne tells the seller's agent. The seller's agent wants to sell this house as much as we want to buy it, so she's on board with rushing it. Surprisingly, she gets the bank to rush it. They really do. This is, probably, the first good thing to happen. If you think about it, it's not so much good, as it is "expected". So, this is the first thing to go as expected. Yes, welcome to being a Zandstra.
Oh, and did I mention that our apartment move out date is fast approaching? I'm not really sure where I'll be living in 3 weeks at this point. I'm sure that my landlord is really tired of me extending my move out date and I'm sure she's pretty tired of me in general, as she and I don't really get along.
We've got 2 weeks left in the apartment. The inspection goes well. I submit the financial paperwork that our new lender wants. I wait in helplessness. Four days pass. OUR LOAN IS APPROVED... again... Ugh. We get all the paperwork done, we're waiting on things. My moveout date is Nov 14th. The Texas downpayment assistance thing is available on the 13th. Yes, I have one freaking day to get this done.
Okay, it's November 4th. Our lender is out of town until November 9th. MOTHERF***ER!!! WHY DO YOU PEOPLE HATE ME!!! Oh, and he didn't give any advance notice. Oh, and he didn't assign anyone to work on it while he's gone.
I can't remember when, but our lender really wants to put a time restriction on some repair money included in the sale contract. No one else wants to do this. He's the only one to bring it up and I still don't know why he wanted to do this. I'm freaking out because I'm not sure where I'm gonna live, if they'll actually let me buy a house and he's trying to get me to do major home repair in the latter half of November. Screw that, no! Not happening! I'm pissed right now just thinking about it.
Then, my grandmother, Mama Jeanne, dies. This was really a curveball, but it puts things in perspective. I was worried about a house and the greatest woman I've ever met dies. I was a bit more subdued about things after this.
I get back into town. Strangely, it all goes well. There are no hiccups. We sign everything, we hand over a lot of money (on paper, anyway) and it's done. We have the keys.
I'm emotionally exhausted, but a homeowner.
So, at the end of it all, I'm happy with the house we bought. It's not perfect, but it'll do. I still haven't gotten any paperwork that the seller said they'd send, but I doubt I ever will. Our real estate agent, Thayne Sterling, is an awesome, amazing woman. Our lenders were either average or sub-par. The whole process was about as fun as getting a root canal through your stomach, but I'm much happier than I was six months ago.
Yeah, I'd say that sums it up well.
Part 3: http://gmp.livejournal.com/510360.html
Part 2: http://gmp.livejournal.com/508979.html
Part 1: http://gmp.livejournal.com/508752.html
Well, after the jump, I explain how I hate money lenders, love my real estate agent, and further prove my hate for large corporations.
This one won't be as detailed as the past few entries because I've much less time in my life lately and it's been 6 months since this happened. Wow, I've owned a home for 6 months now. Jeez.
Anyway, once the state accepted our paperwork, we kind of took a short break. That was our deadline, right? Well, yeah, kind of. Anyway, we took a short break. Nothing much happened as we were waiting on the bank to get back to us.
Around this point, our lender changes. OH JOY! Our old lender's company gets bought out. That means that all the paperwork I did for the first lender gets faxed to the second one and I don't have to sign my name 45 times and send people massive amounts of financial information, right? WRONG. I have to do it all over again. Not freaking happy. Also not happy at anything unexpected, but, knowing my life, I should have expected something bad to go wrong. No, no, I'm not a pessimist, not at all. /sarcasm.
We finally hear back from the bank. They tells us it'll be 45 days before they even *look* at the sale contract. Notice that sentence doesn't contain any timeline on how quickly or slowly they'll approve or reject the contract. FORTY FIVE DAYS BEFORE THEY EVEN OPEN THE ENVELOPE. Our sale contract is for 45 days. That means by the time the bank opens our file, our contract expires.
No, this ain't happenin'. We could get an extension on our sale contract (and we start that) but it won't really fix the problem. The problem is that we have to buy the house by December 1st for the Fed's $8,000 tax rebate. If we don't get that tax rebate, then we don't get the State of Texas's downpayment assistance. If we don't get that assistance, then we don't buy a house. Okay, you ask why that's a problem. If we wait 45 days for the bank to say "yes" and then we have another 21 days of paperwork for loan processing, that would put us at Thanksgiving at the earliest. That leaves around 4 days buffer time. NO ONE DOES ANYTHING OFFICIAL THE WEEK OF THANKSGIVING. Also, how likely is it that the bank just tells us "yes"? How much more likely is it that the stipulate some minor crap on line 37 of paragraph 3 of page 42 on how loud I just farted violates the sale?
This isn't gonna work. Thayne tells the seller's agent. The seller's agent wants to sell this house as much as we want to buy it, so she's on board with rushing it. Surprisingly, she gets the bank to rush it. They really do. This is, probably, the first good thing to happen. If you think about it, it's not so much good, as it is "expected". So, this is the first thing to go as expected. Yes, welcome to being a Zandstra.
Oh, and did I mention that our apartment move out date is fast approaching? I'm not really sure where I'll be living in 3 weeks at this point. I'm sure that my landlord is really tired of me extending my move out date and I'm sure she's pretty tired of me in general, as she and I don't really get along.
We've got 2 weeks left in the apartment. The inspection goes well. I submit the financial paperwork that our new lender wants. I wait in helplessness. Four days pass. OUR LOAN IS APPROVED... again... Ugh. We get all the paperwork done, we're waiting on things. My moveout date is Nov 14th. The Texas downpayment assistance thing is available on the 13th. Yes, I have one freaking day to get this done.
Okay, it's November 4th. Our lender is out of town until November 9th. MOTHERF***ER!!! WHY DO YOU PEOPLE HATE ME!!! Oh, and he didn't give any advance notice. Oh, and he didn't assign anyone to work on it while he's gone.
I can't remember when, but our lender really wants to put a time restriction on some repair money included in the sale contract. No one else wants to do this. He's the only one to bring it up and I still don't know why he wanted to do this. I'm freaking out because I'm not sure where I'm gonna live, if they'll actually let me buy a house and he's trying to get me to do major home repair in the latter half of November. Screw that, no! Not happening! I'm pissed right now just thinking about it.
Then, my grandmother, Mama Jeanne, dies. This was really a curveball, but it puts things in perspective. I was worried about a house and the greatest woman I've ever met dies. I was a bit more subdued about things after this.
I get back into town. Strangely, it all goes well. There are no hiccups. We sign everything, we hand over a lot of money (on paper, anyway) and it's done. We have the keys.
I'm emotionally exhausted, but a homeowner.
So, at the end of it all, I'm happy with the house we bought. It's not perfect, but it'll do. I still haven't gotten any paperwork that the seller said they'd send, but I doubt I ever will. Our real estate agent, Thayne Sterling, is an awesome, amazing woman. Our lenders were either average or sub-par. The whole process was about as fun as getting a root canal through your stomach, but I'm much happier than I was six months ago.