Buying A Home
KeyToHisHeart2017
member
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Feel like we are getting nowhere!
Hello all! I'm on TK and currently planning a June 2017 wedding! I just graduated nursing school in December and FI and I started looking into buying a home. We figured it would still be a while before we were able to buy one but wanted to get started on the process. After our first talk with a lender we found out we were approved for a home loan! We found a house, made an offer, and signed the contract within a week! We were told we would close no later than March 3rd. Every couple days or the last week or so we have been told we need this that and the other... We honestly couldn't think of anything else they needed until today when we got a list of like 7 things we needed to do! So obviously we are not closing today. We were told it would be Monday, now we are looking at next Wednesday. We just feel like we are getting the run around. Every day it's something new! Are we ever going to close!? We started packing and now I've lost all motivation to pack because I feel like we aren't even going to end up getting to move! Is this a normal process? We've never owned a home, neither of our parents ever owned a home, and we don't have any friends who are homeowners. Any advice?
Re: Feel like we are getting nowhere!
Except for them blowing by the closing date, the rest is all pretty much normal.
For example, we both have children from previous relationships. We both turned in our child support orders but they didn't have a judges signature on them (understandable and we definitely didn't even catch that one when we turned them in). I worked 2 jobs last year while I was in school that I no longer work at. They needed proof from these jobs that I no longer work there. My bank account total was a couple thousand more than the average amount so I had to explain where that money came from (i'm working a better job now compared to my other 2 so I make more money). My fiancé never changed his address on his drivers license when we moved into this rent house 3 years ago because we weren't expecting to stay long...and then I went to school so that set us back, so they wanted proof that he lived here. I have been in orientation so my hours have fluctuated from 32-40/week so they needed to confirm with my boss how many hours I am expected to work per week. My fiancé has ownership of a timeshare but it showed up as a mortgage when they viewed it on his credit report. We had to show proof that it is a timeshare and not a mortgage. My ex was way behind on child support and his tax return was routed to me to clear his arrearage, they wanted an explanation of that lump sum. That was just this week. At the end of the day Friday we had all of this information turned in and the loan officer said he was just waiting on the title company to send him the information on when we can close. but he has told us that before so we aren't sure to believe him this time.
Well, I wouldn't fault the loan officer. He's just going off what the underwriters tell him and having been through this multiple times before it's like submitting into a black box. He initially submits what I'll call the "standard list of documents". The underwriters then look at everything and if they decide they want something then your loan officer has to ask you for it. Sometimes this goes on a couple of times and you see as much of it as you do these days because of what happened during the housing crash. They're looking for anything and everything that could be even a little bit odd.
That brings us back to your list above. While any one thing in your list isn't abnormal, I can see why an underwriter might have some concerns. Some of them like your husband's drivers license you should have taken care of. I don't know about your state, but here in Virginia, you have 30 days to do it.
The rest is just trying to prove your income and outflows to make sure you can pay your mortgage on time and in full every month. While you may be awesome about this, many people aren't.
It's definitely frustrating, but not unusual. I bought two properties within the last five years and neither one of them closed on the original closing date. One of them closed 10 days later and the other one closed almost two weeks later.
The first one, the seller did not make the repairs they said they would by the closing date, so it got pushed off until they got their act together. The "seller" was actually a bank and it was a foreclosure. I kind of suspect they were hoping I'd just "let it go" and close anyway. Because my agent had been harassing their agent for a few weeks about it. But nothing happened until I put my foot down and said, "Well we can't close on X date, because they still haven't un-winterized the house." Nope, not letting that go. And thank goodness I didn't. Something went wrong with the un-winterization and, the next thing I know, I go check out the house once everything was done. All the pipes for the back half of the house had been replaced, lol!!!
The second time, there was a delay because the seller had been doing renovations here and there for one of the units (duplex) and had left a bunch of construction supplies in the house. That freaked the bank out when they sent their appraiser because they were worried work had been done (by me) before closing and that causes liability issues. Weird, but whatever, we tackled that problem. Then it turned out the seller was two years behind on their property taxes. So they had to hurry up and go pay that off before we could close.
It sounds pretty normal to me, having been a loan officer before SAHM-hood. The PITA stuff we all can thank the mortgage crisis for. The lenders have to be 100% positive before they do loans that they loans will be repaid. While nothing is 100% full-proof for them, they have to dot the "I's
and cross the "T's". The banks get audited too and they have to give cause for why they made a loan in the first place if that loan ends up going south.
And, it sounds like several of your documents (like the one missing signatures) and the address thing as well as the large bank account balance would all be things AKA possible "red flags" an underwriter would have a loan officer get verification of.