Buying a House...(or two...) Maybe


A rant:
(house #1)
So we have been trying to buy a house for the past few weeks. Because we are so awesome, we thought, "why not buy one house, and get another free..." Sounds rad, huh? So we found a property that had two houses on it - Score! Both are small cottages, but they are in a really nice neighborhood in the D.C. area. Because we were still awesome, we though, "hey, if we get this property we can live in one house and rent the other. That would be rad." So we made an offer, 10% below asking, and lo and behold it was accepted. Because we remain awesome, we thought "hey this is cool, we got the house(s), now we just need to close, and do some remodelling, and, boda-bomb, bada-bing, we will have a nice place in McLean, with a rental property to boot (making it affordable)."


(house #2)
This is obviously where we stopped being awesome and started being non-awesome, I guess. Since we were pre-approved, we didn't think it would be a big deal to get the loan. HA! I guess, since banks (during the housing bubble) used to give loans to dead people, illegal aliens, new-born children, and house pets (as long as they could sign the papers) for properties that may, or may not have existed, this might have been bad business practice, and could have possibley contributed to some of the current housing "crisis." So, even though we have good credit and were pre-approved, do you think that means that we could easily get the loan. HA (again)!

Problem One: I have been astounded at all of the paper work, documentation, recipts, DNA samples, and promises to name our first born Mortgage, that we have had to go through. Seriously, it is crazy. My favorite part is that we (finally) decided to use Bank of America, even though we would have to pay about 1/2 point more on the mortgage (this is where my law degree becomes mildly useful). Because we are clearly non-awesome, we thought that, having had our checking account at BOA since we were married (almost five years) that Bank of America Mortgage branch could see our bank account. HA (again)! This makes too much sense. Did you know that Bank of America can see all of their accounts through-out the country - except for those that were opened in California? You might think this is a joke, but no. Somehow, Bank of America still uses computers that must have been invented in the 1950's because Bank of America - rest-of-the-U.S. can't see the details of bank accounts from Bank of America - California -- Even though they are the same bank. How does this happen? Now-a-days, Macs talk to PCs and vice versa, but somehow Bank of America (Virginia) can't see a Bank of America account in CA. Mind-boggling.

Problem Two: We have heard, when buying real estate, that it is best to buy the cheapest house in a nice neighborhood, then vice versa. So that is what we are TRYING to do. Unfortunatley, even though the tax records and the land value is worth more then we are paying for this house, appraisers can't find any comparable properties that have two, one bedroom one bathroom, cottages. Yeah, of course you can't find any comps, that is why this property is awesome, we are getting two small houses in a neighborhood of million dollar houses for ALOT less then that. And we get two of them. Theoretically. Needless to say, becasue we obviously aren't awesome, we have had a hard time getting the property to appraise, and even when we finally got an appraisal (for more then we are paying, by-the-way), the underwriter decided that they didn't like the appraisal. ARGH! They don't like the property because it is unique. WE KNOW IT IS UNIQUE, THAT IS WHY WE WANT IT!!!

Problem Three: I am impatient.

Problem Four: Because we are awesome, we thought, "Hey, buy the house at the beginning of the summer, when Lorena is out of school, and then we can spend the summer moving and fixing it up, and then when school starts up again, we would be moved into our cool, remodeled place." Well, we are now two weeks past when we thought we were going to close, and we might not close (if we ever do) until next week now. BLEH!

As a final rant, I undertsand that banks need to be a bit more responsible then they were during the housing bubble boom. That is clear. Obviously you shouldn't give loans to people that can't afford them, under the premise that housing always goes up. That was stupid. Everyone knows that. But, the problem is never going to get better if you can't give mortgages to people with good credit, who can afford the house, and are willing to buy! Ok, rant done.

To end this post, I have two pictures from a few sporting events I attended in June. The first is from the U.S.A - Argentina game I went to with my friend Tyson, up in New York (technically New Jersey, since it was at the Meadowlands.) I won't give a full game recap, but Argentina is the #1 team in the world, and the US hung with them all game. I know people who aren't soccre fans don't believe this, but it was the most exciting soccer game I have attended, and it ended 0-0.



Finally, the day after the US game, I went to my second Gaints-Nationals game of the week (they played four, I went to two - which is obvious, since I said second, but I digress). I think I watched the highlight of the Giants season, since they swept the Nationals. The Nationals park is pretty nice, but it is no PacBell. I went to the Monday night game with my two sisters, Andrea and Amy, who are staying at our apartment (read above, if you wonder why we don't have a house!) for a few more days. It was really fun. We all commented that it was the best family home evening that we had ever had.