I went to the mortgage broker's office wearing my closing dress, signed a ton of paperwork, wrote a couple of gigantic-ass checks, and walked out with the keys to my home.
Before I started house hunting, I had heard that home-buying was one of the most stressful things a person can do, and I laughed. I laughed. Because this was gonna be FUN!
By the day of the closing, I wasn't laughing anymore.
By that time, I had:
Looked at more shitholes than you can even imagine. (I was shopping at the lower end of the price scale.) ("You're looking for the best of the worst!", my realtor cheerfully told me.)
Put in an offer on one house, only to find out that it had catastrophic mold issues.
Found out, a few days after that deal collapsed, that the apartment building I lived in was being sold, and I had eight weeks to find a new house, put in an offer, have the offer accepted, and go through closing.
Found another house, only to find out it was in a flood plain and would need massive amounts of flood insurance. "The best of the worst!" I then spent several frantic days researching FEMA flood insurance technical info, having flood vents installed, and wrangling with my useless insurance agent to get the flood insurance premiums down to a reasonable level. (The house has never flooded.) (By "reasonable", I mean that my flood insurance costs substantially more than my homeowner's insurance and covers the structure only and not the contents, but costs "only" five hundred bucks a year. By the time my mortgage is paid off, I will have paid FIFTEEN GRAND in flood insurance. Yeah.)
Almost ended up sneaking to the house with a can of paint in the middle of the night when peeling paint on a garage door threatened to hold up the home loan.
Spent an untold amount of time on the phone trying to convince various professionals to just do their jobs, for the love of Christ, so I can close on this house already.
Did I mention that I quit smoking in the middle of this? Oh yeah.
But! In the end, it all worked out, and in the words of the Pistol Annies:
"Some fine day I'll be drinkin a beer
in a big backyard
I own free and clear"
A-men, ladies. A-men.
3 comments:
That's a damn fine lawn.
Congrats!
When I left Xman, I wanted to get out of "our" house ASAP (he frequently reminded me that it was his house when funny, my name was on the deed and mortgage). I decided to leave on October 29. By Dec. 23rd, I was in my beautiful and new-to-me house that was in perfect move-in condition.
Things will work out for the best. Sometimes.
Isn't it a pip, queen?
and Becs, I'm not sure if things always work out for the BEST, but things always work out. Ha.
and it sounds like your house was a heckuva Christmas present!
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