Closing on new house

We ended up getting a 15 year mortgage at 5%. The "product" from the lender was called "Fast and Easy."

Apparently a lot of people decided to move into new homes right before Christmas and/or refinance existing mortgages before some magic date next week. I have already forgotten why the date next week is magic but it was explained to me. This occurs at a time when the mortgage industry is reeling from a plethora of bad sub-prime loans that has caused many billions of dollars worth of losses to be recognized. These large losses caused a number of mortgage companies to actually quit and the few that remain have reduced staff and expenses.

My rate was locked in at the 5% rate just before rates began increasing. That's really an amazing rate to me and is actually 1/4 point below my very first mortgage back in 1968.

There were a few problems. One interesting problem (to me) was that I didn't have much credit, namely, a single Master Card. And I haven't maintained a balance on it because I paid it off every month. Seems strange to me that this would cause a reduction in one's credit score but it did.

Our closing was originally scheduled for Wednesday, December 19th, at 11 pm. That didn't happen because the lender was swamped with applications and had too few people to handle the volume. First the closing was delayed 5 hours. Then it was delayed 24 hours. Then it was delayed again with no promised time. Finally this morning it was rescheduled for 2 pm today.

We signed and initialed a small forest worth of documents. No one will ever read the documents and they, along with some fellow copies, will reside in various paper files here and there for a short while. They also exist digitally. Eventually the paper ones will be destroyed.

The seller had his own small stack of papers to sign.

Then we all waited. And while we waited we transferred some utilities from him to me. I had to pay a deposit. The seller said he wouldn't give a deposit. I talked to 3 humans and one computer and none were very favorable about waiving the deposit so I paid it and went on.

After some 2+ hours of waiting and talking about everything and nothing the lender finally authorized the title company to cut a check to the seller. I got one, too, because my Cashier's check had been $.87 too much (not my fault). Yep. They wrote me a check for 87 cents.

Another step forward into the real world. I now have an erstwhile mortgage, residence, and city services.

The seller lost his wallet yesterday he told me. He thinks that was because of the Alzheimer's. He asked some about my dad. I kept things positive and upbeat. I didn't lie but I saw no point in telling him what I knew either.

He's the dearest, sweetest man.

Afterwards we drove over to the house and looked around a few minutes. We were both emotionally and physically exhausted. There's a lot of work to be done. It's a really nice house.

Seems fitting somehow that this happened today.