tarrador

"A "Buyer's Market" doesn't mean its going to be easy."

How I did it: We used the internet, real estate agencies, magazines, newspapers and lots and lots of leg work to find a house that was exactly what we wanted to avoid: a short sale.  After we put in our bid we settled in for the long two week wait we were told it would take.  Nine weeks went by and we watched other properties we were interested in slip under contract and close.  Every time we were ready to give up and move on, a new sign of progress made us stay the course.

When they finally approved our offer, the whole deal was nearly bungled by a careless mortgage broker who submitted our loan package incorrectly and with missing information.  She nearly screwed us out of the home.  We were lucky enough to hook up with another broker who was the exact opposite of her.  He was quick, assertive, efficient, informative, and responsive.  Within four days he put a new package together and got it approved, despite local floods and the unfortunate loss of a co-worker.  We were qualified and approved and closed in record time with our new lender, and we are now proud property tax payers.

Lessons & tips: First, get ready for a long process.  Lots of people are buying and selling right now and the banks and agents are swamped.  Short sales are unusually high and many are getting shuffled to the bottom of a pile.

Get a good team in place _before_ you begin your search in earnest.  Talk to the people, take recommendations from fiends, don't be afraid to change players if one doesn't make you happy.  If you get a bad feeling about a member of your team, don't waste time, make a change.

Get your financials, including savings, in shape.  They are going to dig deeper than you can imagine.  It is going to cost you more than you plan.  Be ready and flexible with your resources, and make sure your credit is solid.  Don't count on them overlooking something, they pick you apart with tweezers.

Resources: Get an agent you are comfortable with, a broker you trust, and a closing attorney who kicks ass and takes names.  These are professionals doing a job for money... _your_ money.  Demand that they perform.

It took me 7 months.

It made me all of the above

Contract signed, house is ours!

After seven months of searching, bidding, losing, waiting, financing, hoping, waiting, waiting: we are now homeowners. My #1 goal for the year is actually accomplished. Everything we put on hold for the year can now begin to creep forward. We have the keys, we have a home. My wife's first "home" since she left her parents' house at age 17.

Of course we raced back to the rental and got our bottle of champagne and camp light (the electricity, water and gas are still off), and toasted our accomplishments. We wandered room to room, still getting used to the idea we are responsible homeowners now. We left reluctantly after a couple of hours and had dinner and wine at a local restaurant, the first of our neighborhood outings.

We have the next two weeks to make the transition and move before our rent expires where we are now. Plenty of time to clean and paint, move, unpack, clean and paint. We are moving to a new area of town and hope to meet fun and interesting people and participate in the community.

My thanks and gratitude goes out to all the people who supported and cheered me on this goal. I retire it with a great deal of satisfaction and sense of accomplishment.

Did our final walk thru of the house this evening. Everything was as it should be, no water damage, vandalism, broken windows. Our broker called us with the final numbers and we are getting a cashier’s check in the morning. All our vacation and fun money, and lots of other things we gave up, is going into the closing costs. It was so nice to walk around the empty rooms and know that in less than 24 hours we will be the proud new owners.

The clock is counting down to homeownership. We have our tentative closing date of 4pm Friday, October 16th. We are settling in for the longest 4 days of this whole experience. We are jittery with excitement and nerves.

We have moved forward very well with our new mortgage broker. All our financials have been approved, we got final approval on the status of our loan, they have completed the appraisal and we have crossed every âœtâ and dotted every âœiâ they have asked us to. We have a closing date of October 16th. Of course, no one will guarantee that date, âœso many things can still slow the process down, you knowâ. What I know is that it is little wonder there is a banking and housing crisis given the number of difficulties, challenges, mistakes and downright carelessness we have had to content with. But we are on the yellow brick road to our own abode, and keeping happy thought things continue on the right track. There is a bottle of champagne cooling in the fridge for the day those little brass keys fall into our hands and change our lives.

One of the few happy distractions we have enjoyed during the very stressful month of September has been the developing antics and growth of our foundling squirrel, whom we christened only last night “Lucky”. Unfortunately Lucky passed away today for reasons completely unknown. He had been scampering and playing and acting his normal squirrel self, eating and evacuating as normal, sleeping as normal, in all ways behaving normally. S. has a carrier that she takes him to work in so she can maintain his feeding schedule. He was alert and active for breakfast, but when she went to administer his noon feeding she found him dead in the bottom of the carrier, curled as if asleep. He shows no signs or distress or seizure or trauma, no blood, foam, bloating, smell, stool or vomit, absolutely nothing to indicate what might have caused him to die and pass so suddenly.

While we know that small animals can experience fatal stresses and can perish in very short amounts of time, and we knew his chances from the beginning were uncertain (hence the two week naming ban) we never the less were feeling more confident every day that Lucky would be growing an maturing into a healthy, friendly, curious squirrel ready to reintroduce into the wild in the spring. We are extremely saddened and mystified by his death.

In any respect, Lucky lived longer and in greater care and comfort than he would have had he not been rescued, and we are grateful that whatever ailment caused his demise seemed to have been without pain or extended suffering. Thanks to everyone who followed and cheered Lucky’s progress from a wrinkled pink foundling to the bushy tailed varmit he was becoming. We will miss him very much.

Our broker called us tonight at 9pm to tell us we are out of underwriting, and heading on to the processing department to secure a loan! Big hurtle overcome! The underwriter reviewed our application, made some notes and asked for some documents (all easy to get) and said as long as the processing went smoothly we could still expect to meet our revised closing date of October 16th. While S. jumped around with glee I asked harder, more practical questions, like what kink in the rail could still derail this train?

If the house appraises for less than the selling price (no chance, it is a short sale and is selling for less than anything in the area)

If in the course of the processing they discover we haven’t worked where we say as long as we say (no problem, our info is accurate), if we have debts we haven’t told them about (they know the color of our stools, they have been so far up our asses with a spotlight), if it turns out we are not US citizens (I’m okay, at least), or terrorists (I’m okay, at least), or a few other just as unlikely scenarios. They have to get some info from our previous broker, and there better not be any hold up there. I am willing to be magnanimous in victory, but I will not tolerate anyone throwing a wrench into the works now.

Unfortunately, there just isn’t any sunshine for us without some rain. In addition to the tragic loss of lives this week because of the rains, we suffered a setback of our own. See the next post.

A tempered, yet heartfelt happiness now that we are one big step closer, and gratitudes and blessings to our family, to Crunchy Bread, RONF, Dragonfly35, Littlesoul and everyone else who held us in their thoughts and well wishes. Everyone’s invited to the house warming!!

Sometimes the hardest part of getting a loan, is knowing all the rules…

So now we have two brokers competing for our loan, but of course neither can give us a definate answer until we actually submit our app to an underwriter. Thing is, is they have been overly optomistic and we get declined again (I can’t imagine why, but I couldn’t imagine why the first time, either) the next broker will have a harder time selling us to his underwriters.

What’s interesting (if I were viewing this more clinically and not so personally) is that everybody has different requirements of us for the same type of loan. Some want two months paystubs, some want two years tax returns. Some want to know why I don’t have enough credit cards, some want to know why I have so many. I wonder how much of this is really necessary and how much is just fluff so that they can use any excuse to deny a loan in the face of a shaky credit market. We have been told bluntly we are being appraised for our marketability; that is, the ease with which our mortage (should we get one) can be sold to another finance company. We are not being viewed as individuals or even gauged on our ability and willingness or commitment to pay back the loan. Do we fit a formula needed to lump similar loans together and sell as a package to some other company who will also want to know our marketability. They may be providing a service, but we are as much a commodity to them as potatoes to a farmer… who to harvest, who to plow under.

We are trying to get the process rolling again and our new broker, Bubba, is still sending positive feedback on our application, but doesn’t have a firm answer for us yet. He was going to have an answer yesterday, but his office had to be evacuated mid-day because of the heavy rains plaguing Atlanta this week. Or maybe they are plaguing us. Thursday will be a week since we were initially declined and I really want to have something to tell the home owner. We spent more than two months waiting for an answer from his bank, and we now have nearly four months invested in this project, so I am sure he doesn’t want to pitch all that and start over with a new buyer, but I can’t expect him to wait too much longer. Hopefully there will be helpful news today. I have my “hodie” amulet and keep focusing on positive outcomes.

At least someone is getting a new house. Our little squirrel, so tiny when we picked him up, now has enough energy and size to warrant a cage. We picked one up at Target, along with a small cat carrier so S. can still transport him to work with her, since he is still on a feeding schedule. He likes to jump around his cage and explore, and I am duty bound to report he is peeing and pooping on his own now (seems baby squirrels have to be prompted to do this initially).

The last two days have been…challenging.

It really began after our home inspection went through (okay, it really began ealier than that, but one crisis at a time). We had decided to use the inhouse broker of our real estate agent. They have had our finanical information for months – months!, and have never given us anything put positive feedback. Once the home inspection was completed I went, updated financials and $400 in hand, to start the loan process. At this point the loan officer, let’s call her “Puddles”, hemmed and hawed and said she didn’t want to send our info to the first lender she had planned, but to another lender who would take longer to review the application, but was more likely to come back with a positive answer.

One week went by and all was well. Two weeks went by and we began thinking that 7 – 10 business days seemed like a long time. Our conversations with the loan officer at this point were becoming confusing and disturbing. Puddles could not clearly tell us what we were waiting for or how much longer we were likely to wait. By week three our daily calls actually managed to penetrate the iron curtain of her voice-mail (which was always full)and she swore to let us know the minute our approval came back.

Yesterday I made my routine call. Puddles told me she had received an answer and was reviewing it. It was a denial from the lending agency. That was, truely and honestly, the last answer I expected. “Low income to debt ratio”, and another financial issue in S.’s background were the problem. But this couldn’t be. Our income to debt ratio was so low people asked us if we were 100% sure we didn’t owe more people money. And the matter with S. had been taken care of according to the broker’s instructions. The more we talked an the more questions I asked, the quieter Puddles became, and more she mumbled. Disturbed, I sent S. over to review the “denial” and determine just what the problem was, and what our next step was.

When S. arrived she found Puddles uncooperative and vauge. She back-tracked on the income to debt story and said the problem was S.’s past issue. “So what is our next step?” S. pressed. Puddles hemmed and hawed and continued being vauge.

Can we resubmit our application, ask for a review of the decision?
No.
Are you going to submit it to another lender?
No.
No? Why not?
With this issue, no one else will agree to underwrite you.

Really? No…one? And where was this info when we originally applied. We gave it to you, did it not register with you that if we found a house, we wouldn’t qualify for a loan?

Our agent learned of the issue and put us in touch with another broker. We will call him Bubba. Bubba asked Puddles for all our financial info, and we slowly have been learning that the problems were not ours. Our loan app had numerous mistakes, including a wrong SSN# and all of S.’s salary and income info not included. No wonder they came back with a poor income to debt ratio. And much of the information Puddles has been telling us for the last two days is so wildly incorrect, it can only be frantic lies or delusional behavior. Not good in the woman holding the reins to our house. Worse, we are only a week from our orginal closing. Worse, we gave notice to our landlord, to be our by the end of the month. Worse, we don’t know if Bubba is going to do any better with his lenders. Worst of all we may lose the house we spent six months finding. All because of a paperwork glitch that Puddles tried to make sound like it was our fault and telling our agent we know all along it would be hard to get a loan.

We have asked around other brokers and are discovering that many of the things Puddles is telling us just isn’t true. So we have a new broker who is trying to expidite our process. The owner has had to ask his bank to back up the closing to mid October.

Damned if it won’t be fall, possibly winter, before I buy a house in the spring.

Very tired. Many margaritas. More to follow.

As soon as he could see where he was going, it has been a race on unsteady legs for our little squirrel. Everyday he gets about a bit better. Its funny to watch him playing, romping, tumbling about, then fall asleep on his feet like he’s narcoleptic. He is learning he can climb around now. Arms, pillows, pants legs… no place is safe. I think to myself: “he will only get faster!”

Holding up that big head is really a chore for the little guy. He is getting more active everyday, but he can only use his legs for short periods of time. He wobbles and tumbles and flips over all the time. But he is gaining weight, fur, size… and now that he can see where he is going, only a matter of time before he grows in mischief, too.

First the right eye, then the left peeled themselves open on our little foundling squirrel. He still sleeps a lot, but is gaining weight and growing in size. His tail curls over his back and this is a good sign that he is healthy. Now that he can see what’s going on, we have to be more careful about his security. He is a lot more mobile now, when he is awake. He still tumbles and rolls around a lot, but he is starting to get his legs under him.

Since it looks like he will have to be hand fed a few more months, and reared indoors during the winter, we have begun knocking around names. The lead contenders are:

Loki
Twitch
Tumbles
Peanut
Schoonover

43T votes and suggestions are welcome, but I cannot promise they will have an effect on the final choice.

"Steampunk was the flavor of the year, Star Wars was passe."

How I did it: I set the goal down in my list of 43 Things.  It motivated me to not let the date creep up on me.  I bought the tickets, applied for the weekend off from work, purchased assorted costume stuff and really cool boots.  By arriving early and staying late, parking was easy, and we were able to do a lot of events.

Lessons & tips: We chose to go costumed, but that wasn't a requirement.  Take a camera with fully charged batteries because you will take lots of pictures.  If you can get a room in the hotel that would be good.  The bars are packed so it takes a reaaaaally long time to get good and drunk.

Resources: Internet, Dragon.Con website, TicketMaster, costume shops, Creative Loafing Magazine.

It took me 9 months.

It made me freaky and geeky

10 years in Atlanta and I had never been to Dragon.Con. Now I don’t want to miss another one! It was a great time with a great group of people (about 40,000), and some of the most wild and creative outfits I have ever seen. It was Halloween on a factory scale and I was truly impressed. We wandered around for hours upon hours, checking people out, taking photos, talking with folks, making new friends and even meeting old friends! (Despite the crush of people and our own costumes, we met two young women whom we have crossed paths with at events in Savannah and New Orleans. It was great to see them again and catch up)

We wandered, wondered, shopped, browsed art, talked shop with computer gamers (I totally faked it, they totally knew it), and brushed elbows with celebrities (Malcom McDowell and Bruce Boxleitner are celebrities!). We also decided that next year we are sooooo getting a room downtown. We mixed and socialized until 2 am, only leaving because we just had to get home and let the dog out. We also registered for Frolicon in April. It is a much more adult version of Dragon.Con and also looks to be great fun. It is only in its 5th year (D*C is in its 23rd), and I don’t want to write another entry about how I waited 10 years to do that.

We had so much fun S. wondered aloud how we finally got around to actually doing it. I laid it firmly at the door of “being on my list of 43 Things”.

After a week of conscious eating and being good I have hit a plateau. No weight lost this week. Booo! Especially since the deadline for this goal is coming up and S. emphatically states she will stick to the terms of our deal. So close, but I am worried now I won’t make this goal in time. I don’t want to go on water and diuretics, but I hate losing, too.

Our little foundling continues his progress. He has started cutting teeth (toofers) and yesterday his little ears suddenly popped out. They had been little bumps on a bumpy head. Fur is getting a little thicker and you should hear the fuss he makes when the food doesn’t come fast enough! His eyes haven’t opened yet (another 2 weeks, we think)but he is sensitive to light. He still sleeps most of the time. He will crawl around a little but is such a squirmy thing it is no mystery he fell out of his nest.

We have a strict “no namiming” policy on critters for the first two weeks, but I think soon we are going to have to contemplate one.

Fast and easy stir fry with rice noodles, bell peppers, red onions, marinated shittake mushrooms, green beans, squash and zucchini with garlic and fried ginger, fresh cilantro, homemade Sesame Asian Vinaigrette, and a pile of sprouts.

Three days of practical neglect (all you have to do is keep ‘em moist and warm) and I harvested a bowl full of mung bean and alfalfa/broccoli/radish sprouts.

Sprouts are a nice treat to snack on, and also a very healthy food source. The seed contains all the enzymes and nutrients needed to get a sprout going before the job of the roots take over and start feeding the plant via the soil and water. Sprouts are living plants, still full of vital energy. Broccoli sprouts have up to 40X the calcium and vitamin content of a full grown plant, and the flavors are light and delicate.

Growing them at home is super easy and super cheap (compared to buying them at the store at $2-3 a pint). All it takes is a glass jar with a screened lid, seeds for sprouting (make sure they are organic and suited for sprouting. Some seeds have pestacides and anti-mold and fungus protection and are only suitable for planting), water and room on the countertop. Soak the seeds, usually overnight, drain, lay the jar on its side and rinse the seeds and drain two – three times a day. Sprouts usually appear within the first day, and by day three or four sprouts are ready to harvest. Just dump them into a big bowl of cold water and stir, letting the seed husks fall away. Remove the sprouts and drain, then store in the fridge, keeping them moist but not wet. Consume rapidly, because if you start another batch of sprouts right away, they’ll be filling up the fridge in no time.