Closing today!

smbsantacruz · June 2012

I can't believe it's finally here ... sellers signed yesterday morning, and so we're just waiting on the funding (should be by 1 p.m., according to our wonderful loan officer) and then on the sellers to finish packing the bits and pieces left after their storage pod was hauled away the other day. Of course, we also have to rely on our flaky Realtor to get us the keys.

Here's what our process looked like:

DH started looking at what was on the market in our area to get a feel of prices, availability, timing, etc. in January.
In April, we visited our first house ... and put an offer in. We were beaten out by a cash offer with an escalator clause, and had to find a new Realtor.
We spent five weekends visiting about 25-30 homes, either just driving by or scheduling walk-throughs with our new Realtor, who we weren't sure about. We didn't really like the homes she sent us to look at; and she took forever to return our calls.
Put in a lowball, why-the-hell-not offer on a home that was $50K out of our price range in May, offer wasn't accepted. But it took a week and a half for us to find that out, because our Realtor was out of touch with us AND the listing agent.
Mid-May, decided to find a new agent while looking at more homes. Then, of course, we fell in love with one and needed someone to represent us ASAP. We called our agent, had to wait for her to walk us through the house and put in a full-price offer, 3% closing costs. Sellers countered with $3K over asking, 3% closing costs. We signed.
Four days later, inspection goes great. We ask them to replace the furnace, electrical panel, do some minor electric work in the attic, clean/treat the roof, have the deck correctly bolted to the house and put in some missing siding. They came back with everything but the deck/siding, which was fine by us ... a $350 job.
Then things got even more cruddy with our Realtor. We asked her to send someone out to look at the walls where the siding was missing to inspect for dry rot, and she threw a fit. Thought we were crazy because the inspection went so well. We explained our concerns, and she wouldn't do it. We had to find our own person to go check it out. Of course, it was fine, but our Realtor should have seen that we needed peace of mind and helped us, instead of explaining how great a job she did getting us everything else on our list.
Loan process was smooth as silk, no problems whatsoever. Our loan officer did a great job of gathering documents early in the process, and so I only had to provide a few other items as underwriting went on. I am buying in my name only (as a married woman something-something, can't remember) because of DH's credit, which is sort of exciting for me.

Just wanted to thank everyone for being here ... I lurked obsessively during this process to get advice, insight and reassurance that my anxiety wasn't crazy; and put my story out there in case it helps others!