The American Dream

Everyone has that dream ....the American Dream ..to own their own home. To have a place you can go to, to feel safe and secure, not to worry about what is outside your own four walls. The stress of the day just seems to melt away as soon as you walk in the door. She had the same dream !

We meet on a brutally cold Saturday morning. We were both at the March Plant Sale at Bear Creek Park. She needed my little red wagon so she could haul a couple of fruit trees to her car. I had to unload mine. While she helped me unload those plum trees into the back of my suburban, we engaged in a conversation. She was not sure why she was buying fruit trees since the balcony at her apartment was already overflowing with other plant life ! She said she really needed a house ! Low and behold, guess what I do for a living ?? I am a licensed Real Estae Broker for the State of Texas. Seredipity, she called it !

I gave her my business card and she said she would call....we all know how that goes (most of the time)!

A week later, I get this call from the gal at the plant sale ....she really does want to buy a house ! So we chat on the phone for a while so I can get an idea of what it is she wants in a home. We decide to start looking the following weekend. Durring the phone call, I find out she also needed assistance with the financing of the home purchase. So I gave her a couple of names and numbers to contact. Unless you pay cash for a home, you will need a loan to finance the purchase of your home. The lender will determine the guidelines of your loan. From the amount you can borrow,what your credit scores need to be, the amount you must have for a down payment and how much , if any, is allowed as a contribution from the seller or a gift from a family member.
 She was QUALIFIED and had her letter to prove it.

She also had personal guidelines we added to the lender guidelines. We needed to stay in Cy-Fair ISD because her son was going to be a Junior and now was not the time to switch schools. She wanted a home that was not too big, easy to maintain and in fair condition. She also need the environmental conditions to be suitable for her garden and those fruit trees she bought !  So, off we went.....

We covered most of Katy, Texas. From highway 6 and I-10 to Highway 99 /the Grand Parkway and back to West Little York /529 area. Every Saturday and / or Sunday for the next couple of months. We would look at 5 or 6 houses on each trip. Any more than that and they begin to look the same. I made her keep her top 3 and throw the rest away. Some days we had zero on the list. She did find a couple along the way but they just weren't giving her that giddy feeling a buyer wants !

There was one subdivision we kept passing on our house hunting expedition and she wondered why it was not on the list. Usually, this is because the parameters are outside the guidelines that have been set up in the search criteria. I found out the homes were a bit smaller than the ones we had been looking at. She decided she really liked the subdivision, maybe we needed to look anyway. So, we added 3 homes to the list for our next outing.
The first house had a hot tub on the outdoor patio, which took up too much room, the sun was not set in the right direction, and the inside needed a bit more work than she was willing to tackle. The second one was just way too small. But the third one, well it just might be the one ! It had been well maintained by the previous (only) owner. It needed a bit of updating, but nothing she couldn't handle and the yard had plenty of space for a garden and those fruit trees. She wanted to think about it and talk to her son before she made any sort of decisions. I told her to sleep on it and call me in the morning. She called that evening..... ready to jump in with both feet .. Her son said the house was "tight" .............we understood that to mean ...cool !

We arranged to meet the next day for lunch, since she had a working schedule that did not allow for outside activity. I explained the process, the timeline and expectations. We knew that we had a couple hurdles we needed the seller to accept, one of them being the closing date. She had to give a 60 day notice to the apartment complex. And of course, the sales price is important. She qualified for an FHA loan, which allows for seller assistance, which we wanted, as well.
We wrote up an offer we thought the seller would look at and would want to work with us on. She went back to work !

Time went slowly by. If ever time seems to stand still, it is when you are waiting on an answer that will change your life ! And of course, in this situation, both parties have certain terms that need to be met in order to have a satisfactory outcome...After going back and forth for a day or two... the seller and the buyer agreed to the terms and we had an executed contract!

Once an executed contract is in place, there are certain items in the contract that have to follow a timeline. The first of those time lines is the "option period"  and one of the others, is the financing  timeline.

When an "option period" is payed for, you buy time. This "time" is used to find out specific information about the home you are trying to buy. This is when you want to have the inspections performed. She did not know any inspectors, so I gave her a couple of names and numbers to call and inspections were set up for the following weekend. 

I explained the inspection routine and told her not to be frightened by all the INR (in need of repair)  items that would show up on the report. A noisy fan will get you an INR! And especially since this house was built in the 80's, there would be items called for INR because the building codes had changed since this home was built. I let her and the inspector go over the house without me. I wanted her to feel comfortable asking questions and to be able to make her own decisions about what she felt was important to her. Every person has a different level of expertise when it comes to home repairs. What is important to me, may be of now concern to you ! So.............she asked for the toilet to be fixed. The seller said okay !

Now we are past day 10, the inspection phase is over. The lender has their copy of the contract, all parties connected to the contract have their copy and the Title company has their copy. We are waiting on final approval from the lender on the buyer conditions. This means job verification, debt verification and bank (money) verification. Of course, the lender wants to know everything about you, now. Several years ago, as long as you were breathing you could get a loan ! She is getting excited, the lender says all is well, so far.

We are within a day or two and I am getting anxious because the file is not out of "underwriting" yet. If we go past the financing timeline,and the lender has not given us an answer, the wrong answer could cause the buyer to lose their earnest money... in this case that would be $1,000. Not some pocket change ! The lender says all is good , just need to pull one more report for final approval... wait.....wait....wait...
The lender says the report is ...no good... they will not approve the loan !    What......we say !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!WHY ......HOW can this be ????????

She is dumbfounded ...thought all was going so well. what went wrong.. what can we do.????

I am now racking my brain for a solution. I am going to have to call all parties to the sale and inform them of this latest news. Believe me, this is not fun !! Has to be one of the worst parts of the job !

I think I can still get this to work .... I tell her... all lenders have different guidelines. Because the item in question was one of those items that change with lender to lender, I said, lets switch lenders. But now I have to get the seller to agree to extend the financial timeline. I explain our situation to the sellers' agent. She will explain to the sellers. The thing we have going is we are still 3 weeks away from the actual closing date, so time is on our side.
The seller AGREED !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So we get a hold of another lender and I dump the old file in her lap !   She has 10 days to qualify the "buyer". Not the house, the buyer. The house is the appraisal and the survey and title work. The buyer is debt, money and job. debt..how much and how well paid; money..how much and where is it and where did it come from; job how long there and how much do you make. All 3 of these have to paint a picture of a solid individual who will be worth the risk of the loan !
 It takes 4 days just to get the paper work completed. And, wouldn't you know we have a holiday weekend in there, so our 10 days are now down to 9. And our last day follows the holiday Monday, so we need to have all the paperwork in the underwriters office by Friday, so we can get our answer by Tuesday, the 10th day.  So we really only have 5 days... we did our part...everything is in the underwriters hands........we wait till Tuesday
But Tuesday...the answer does not come ..wait ...wait...wait..no answer
Here we go again ... in order to protect the earnest money, I explain to her, we will have to terminate the contract, if we do not have an answer by the end of the day.. Even if we get an answer tomorrow, if it is the wrong answer, she will lose her $1,000.  Just too much, if she loses the house too.

 So, I send off the termination to the sellers agent. Of course, she does not want to have to take this news to the sellers, again. I explain that the answer is not "no", we just do not have an answer yet and today is the dead line. We might have a favorable answer tomorrow but we cannot take the chance on losing the $ 1,000 . Maybe the sellers agent can sleep on it and we will have positive news tomorrow.

What a difference a day makes. What a difference a lender makes ................they said  " APPROVED !!!   Sighs all around ! SHE is Jumping up and down with joy ! Call the sellers. They are jumping up and down !

We now have 11 days left before we close, we need an apprasial and a survey done.. SHE needs to start packing.. SHE needs to switch utilities, SHE needs to get "new address" cards. SHE is going to have a new home !  SHE wants to moving the closing date up ! Go figure !
We have 8 days now ! I think we can do this! The rest of the transaction was nothing, compared to what she had just been through.
The day of closing came up the next week and I was proud to hand her that set of keys !
SHE never gave up on me and
She never gave up on her dream.                     AND here is what she had to say !!