Buying a house

Before I forget this experience I need to record it. Let's say first that it is not as fun as it may look. It is hugely stressful and I still have 58 days until I feel the payoff.

We first found the house on Mechanic Street - an old brick colonial in downtown Attleboro that kitty corner's a Dunkin'. Too rich for our blood and it's a short sale with an offer already pending.

The second attempt was a place on Pembroke Ave on a sweet dead end, right near another Dunkin' but also near Capron Park and Exit 5. We lost that house in a bidding war by $1000. A terrible Sunday was spent in the Weathervane restaurant figuring out what was our best move to no avail. Their realtor was a scumbag.

The third attempt was on a condo on Michaelson. I could envision us living there, but I didn't have butterflies. At that point we had basically given up on finding our dream home and just wanted to find a for now home. Rent wears you down after a while and with our degenerate neighbors stealing the washing machine time and time again, our patience was fried. Good condo fees, a nice paint job, and a fenced backyard was enough to whet our whistles. Denied. They wanted way more than we were willing to pay.

After that rejection, we took a week off from looking. This is after 3 realtors and almost 18 months of daily emails from multiple search sources and many weekends of touring three and four homes at a time. We were starting to wonder if anyone's property was just left in normal shape anymore. Also, sellers are not realistic in this crashed economy.

So after another 2 hours of scouring the web in the wee hours, I saw an open house for the next day - Convincing Michael to join me, we made the plan to see it. We arrived before the realtor and stayed almost the full hour. I think we may have been the only ones to see it. HA!


41 Deerfield Road Unit 11, Attleboro, MA was perfect. Two bedrooms, two full baths, fireplace, open floor plan, central air, a finished basement with a bar, all appliances, double sinks, and a porch view over Cranberry Pond. Michael walked out onto the porch and said "I must possess this." We tried not to thrill to desperately in front of the flake realtor, but had every intention of putting in an offer. After so many letdowns, though, we slept on it. We waited until Tuesday.

Sight unseen, our realtor put in a bid for us. Their realtor had put it down for some fake value pricing - "accepting offers between $175K and $225K. We put in for 175. They bargained, we bargained back. Michael was at work and I was out at the RISD museum with my mother, trying to figure out how high we should go on each bid. They came back with an offer and a caveat. They accepted our (seemingly too low) price, but we had to wait until the end of July to close. Not knowing that we were in a month to month lease and possessed that flexibility, we played understanding and bit. The deal was done. And they also threw in an extra fridge for the downstairs bar.

We scheduled an inspection, post haste, and Mr. Speed Demon/Knows his Shit came and taught us all there was to know about shutting off the water and tuning up the appliances. Their realtor was on her cell on the porch while we were investigating the property. Wary that there would be something to prevent the approval of an FHA loan, we followed the inspector around like lambs. No such danger. A few broken seals on the windows, a small mold on the ceiling of a common area, and a low light on the furnace was all he came up with - plus a few backwards electrical sockets. Easy.

A few days later, we signed a lawyer approved Purchase and Sales Agreement with Diana White at the downtown Dunkin' Donuts. Who says America doesn't run on Dunkin'?? We handed over the remainder of the signatures for our loan approval, signed a hefty check, and enjoyed the first Coolata as new homeowners.

Then, the fun begins. In order for everything to go down, the mortgage guy, Dave, had to get our loan approved with an underwriter. Well! He lost the first batch of paperwork I sent him, the day after we agreed on a price. Saying his "computer crashed and he lost all of his email." Resend all of our financial information for two years.

We don't hear from him for almost two weeks. Our committment letter date looms. The committment letter proves to the sellers that our financing is approved and in order. We apparently do not have all the paperwork in. The underwriter emails me for documents, documents that I handed to my realtor along with an already cashed check. Strange that they got the check but our bank didn't get the signatures. Okay, resend documents.

One week before our committment letter, the bank asks us to provide them with a letter from Michael saying that he cut down his hours voluntarily so that he could go to school for free on the GI Bill. We have calculated our income on his reduced hours, leaving out the income from the GI Bill. This should not matter. But it does, and we write the letter.

Two days before our committment letter date, we get an email asking us to call Dave, the mortgage guy. He asks Michael to go to work and get a letter signed by his manager claiming that the bank did not cut Michael's hours, but that it was a voluntary cutback. Michael doesn't work that day. Furthermore, his direct manager was fired three days earlier. In addition, this is Bank of America. They are not going to write that letter. Even after Michael cashes in some favors to get his boss' boss' email address. The day before the committment letter, the bank rejects the request outright. We do not make our deadline.

I suppose when they ask for things that are ungettable, they can just waive that stipulation. Because despite the social leverage that Michael had to spend trying to get that letter and our best attempts to be timely, we had to file for an extention or lose our $4500. Thank god our lawyer is competent. The entire time our mortgage guy is saying that the committment letter doesn't affect the sellers - that it's just something for us - clearly he was wrong. We even called our realtor and asked if it was too late to switch mortgage companies because this guy was seemingly unreliable. No go.

After many lengthy conversations about how we shouldn't be mad at him and how we just need to "fix it and move on" and that he "said from the beginning that there would be some bumps in the road" we got our freakin' committment letter.

At 60 days, we locked in at a rate lower than our previous estimate. And now, we wait for moving day. Today I paid the last rent check. Tomorrow, we take over the world!