The Shelter Saga: Part 3

We still had a ton of paperwork to do. I pulled together every document I could think of to throw at the application, called various companies to request letters of credit, talked to former employers to have them fill out important forms, faxed pay stubs and tax returns and award letters, and anything (and everything) else the banker could think of to ask me for. Some of them several times, after he changed assistants (or something – I didn’t ask).

And then, we waited.

It was 3 weeks from the time we made the offer on the house until we found out whether or not we were approved for financing. I /literally/ gave myself an ulcer, worrying about it.

In the meantime, we spent another $450 on the home appraiser. The difference between an appraiser and an inspector is, as far as I can tell, that one is FYI, and the other actually matters. Having gone through that part of the process a couple of times, now, I feel like the inspector is pretty redundant. It’s what the appraiser finds that matters.

So, she found 5 places on the house (3 exterior, 2 interior) where the paint was chipping and needed to be touched up. I thought, “Okaaaay… That’s good to know.” Like, who cares about a little chipping paint – especially such small areas. I actually e-mailed Barb to ask if the repair list was just FYI, or what? But, no, the seller actually has to complete all the repairs on the list, then the appraiser has to come back and check if it was done correctly – to the tune of another $125, before the bank will proceed with the loan process. What would happen of you were trying to buy a fixer-upper?! What a mess.

We found out that we were approved for the finances. (Thank GOD! What a relief. I could sleep again for the first time in weeks.) Then came a parade of other steps that truly feel like a list of bullshit reasons for someone else to get their fingers in the mortgage pie. Things like a title opinion, where some lawyer from the area “examines the abstract of the title,” then writes you a letter that says, “Yup, that was definitely what that was.” And then charges you $200. Or some other company in Waterloo that does a deed check, or something, to the tune of another $85. I never did even see a piece of paper saying “Yup, we did it,” from that one…

Eventually, we managed to drill down to scheduling the closing. You can’t just go to the bank to do that, though. There’s a whole ‘nother company that gets involved, and you have to work around how busy they are. So, we went abruptly from having a crushing sense of urgency and absolutely no time frame, to “Closing’s in four days! Congratulations, you must come up with $2,600 above any beyond your down payment. RIGHT NOW.”

And that is where we are as of now. Closing is set for noon tomorrow!