On Monday, June 15th, 2009, Kurt and I bought our first house.
Finally.We were originally supposed to close on May 22nd. About a week and a half before, we started calling our loan officer because we hadn't heard anything from him. The officer, we'll call him Bob*, told us he hadn't heard anything from the processor but he would keep us updated. May 20th was the loan deadline. On Tuesday we were desperately call Bob, who remained difficult to get in contact with. Eventually we got a hold of Bob's manager, "Gary", who told us the same. They'd been emailing and calling the processor, "Judy," but had not heard one peep from her. Wednesday came and went and we had to extend the contact one week.
"Ok, no big deal," we thought (after calming down. (Keep in mind, this is all in hind sight. When we were living this story, our emotions were more heightened than how I'm portraying them.) "We'll still buy our paint, mattress set, and tv. After all, we'll close Friday for sure."
Well, Wednesday the 27th loomed close and still no word from the processor. Not one! By now we were fully ticked off. We'd spoken with Bob, Grant, and even Judy's manager. Still, Wednesday came and went and we had to extend our contract another week. On Thursday, Kurt got an email from Judy. Judy told us how she'd taken our file home with her the night before (after the deadline passed...) and looked at our file
for the first time. Then she realized that the property is in Colorado and that she's not licensed to process loans in Colorado. (Why did she even have the file, then??)
Kurt contacted Gary's manager. At this point, we were livid. Gary's manager emailed Kurt on Friday. He assured Kurt that our file was now in Denver and that the Denver branch manager was personally seeing to it that our file got to the underwriters soon.
The first week of June rolled on without a peep from anyone. Finally, on Thursday, June 4th, we got an email from our new loan processer, "Lori." Lori was on the ball! She contacted Kurt every day for new information. We had to sign new loan papers. We provided many duplicate forms to the lenders. Apparently, Judy, the original processor, didn't send everything over to our new kick-ace processor, Lori. Lori told us she couldn't promise that we'd be able to close on June 12th (yes, by this time we'd extended a
3rd time) but she would try her hardest. On Thursday, June 11th, she emailed everyone and told us we were ready to close.
"Hooray! Finally!! Woohoo!!!" We exclaimed. I got off work early on Friday, ran home to take Zumi out, ran to pick Kurt up from work, and ran to the title company. Our real estate agent, Heather, greeted us with 'Congrats' balloons and sparkling grape juice and took pictures of us triumphantly holding our new house keys. The title company provided hot cookies which I scarfed down. We were practically giddy as we waited for everyone else to arrive.
Suddenly... a phone call on Kurt's cell.
As Kurt spoke to whoever-it-was, his face took on this look of bitter irony. I looked at Heather.
"We're not closing. I can see it in his eyes."
Sure enough, when Kurt hung up he told us the call was from "Brenda," Lori's manager. All that was left to do on our loan before sending over the docs was the HUD approval signature. The closer at the lending company went to provide this simple need and was thwarted by a computer glitch. Crucial parts of our account were frozen and unaccessible. As Brenda told Kurt, she'd never seen anything like this. She assured Kurt that the entire IT department was working on this and would continue to through the weekend until it was done, but it was a very slim chance they would fix it by the end of the day. She couldn't even promise we'd be able to close on Monday or Tuesday.
Kurt laughed bitterly. The sellers' agent wanted our agent to somehow make it possible to close. I chose to bang my head on the table a few times and then think of increasingly creative and morbid ways to kill myself. (By the end of the day, I was able to laugh.) At 4:30, we all left the title company, completely deflated. Kurt suggested we go see a movie and that was a great suggestion. Star Trek was just the thing to get my mind off the frustration. The next day we went garage sale-ing where I snagged some $5 chairs. Then we hung out at Jen and Evan's apartment complex's pool, laying and grilling out. That night we went to a ward BBQ. The next day we went to our new ward. I woke up Monday morning feeling refreshed and calm.
However, once at work I was bombarded by questions. Did we close? How did it feel to be a homeowner? I didn't know what that felt like! I got more and more stressed, and more and more worried. Suddenly, an email from Lori:
"The computers are fixed. Y'all can close."
"Hooray!" I thought tiredly. But I didn't want to get my hopes up, in case there was another freak accident. I once again raced home, raced to pick Kurt up, and raced to the title company. I once again ate lots of cookies. Heather welcomed us this time with a 'Welcome Back' balloon and IBC root beer in bottles. (I had said on Friday, "Now I know why people drink!") But we didn't count our chickens just yet. Everyone got there and we signed the paper work. And then we waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, after 3.5 hours, the money wire came through. The house was ours and the money was the sellers'. We had finally got our home!!!
*Names changed to protect the innocent and not-so-innocent.
[Pictures forthcoming.]
