This is the third in a series about my experience of finding a house. (Part 1 is here, Part 2 is here, Part 4 is here)
As I'm autistic, the process proved to be a bit more challenging than
it would be for most people. In part 1, I covered why we decided to buy a
house and what things we opted to look for, given my disabilities and
challenges. Last week in part 2, I described the actual search process, which proved to be both draining and frustrating. This week, I'll explain what happened after we put an offer down on a home.
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So there was a bunch of annoying paperwork that went with putting the offer in, but thankfully that can all be done online these days, somehow, and all I really had to do was read a bunch of legalese in .pdf format, then sign at the appropriate places. Reading it was optional, even, but it's never a good idea to sign something without reading it...
After we put in the offer, there was the painful waiting period while the other offers went in, were checked over, and a decision was made on which offer to take. Fortunately, our offer was accepted. Had it not been, we would have been back to square one, basically.
Thus far, the process had been exhausting, but relatively straightforward. Now began the back and forth between waiting and flailing frantically. Communication came in bursts, with much waiting between each burst, and much activity directly afterwards.
The broken sump pump was of sufficient worry to me to request it be replaced before we moved in, so there was a disagreement with the seller about that... After much back and forth (like, a week's worth of back and forth), and after he found out the sump pump was the owner's responsibility, he finally paid for a new one. (All of $150, and him receiving literal thousands of dollars on the sale of this home. Ugh.)
Unfortunately, that wasn't all. I'm sensitive to mold, so I had to hire a second inspector to do a proper mold test. No sense moving into a place and then finding out I couldn't live in half of it. To my horror, the mold test did come back with toxic black mold spores, which was almost enough for us to call it quits on the entire place. But there hadn't been water damage, so we suspected perhaps the sump pump was the problem. But then we had to bargain with the seller for who was paying for any mold remediation costs... which was a mess. I think it took another week or so before we were able to get the seller to agree on splitting the cost. In the meantime, he threatened to back out of the sale, which was extremely frustrating and nerve-wracking to me, given how much time we'd spent on this place.
The mold cleanup ended up being little more than replacing the sump pump and cleaning the carpets, and the second test came back without any toxic black mold spores, so thankfully I think we dodged most of that bullet. I'm breathing the basement air at present and don't feel hideous or particularly out of sorts, but I guess we'll see how the weeks progress.
Prior to those messes, the seller had originally offered us all the furniture save a few pieces in the home. Since it was nice stuff, well matched and coordinated, we were excited and wanted to take him up on it. We offered a reasonable price, specifying particular pieces we really liked. Then there was nothing for half a week. We then heard back that he was going to keep most of what we'd liked, but did we want anything that wasn't already spoken for in the downstairs? We did, and offered an appropriate price for those pieces... only to hear back a couple days later that, "just kidding, I'm taking everything but these pieces you didn't want, which you can have for a ridiculous price." I was pretty annoyed with the seller after that.
The wreck actually started after we put in our application for "preapproval." We heard from him briefly, saying he was going to try to finish our application before the end of the week... and then utter silence for basically the whole of the next week, until we emailed... at which point we found out he was on vacation and hadn't bothered to tell anyone. Including the realtor who had recommended him to us.
When he got back from his unannounced vacation, we tried to contact him again, and succeeded... only to find out that he'd somehow lost vital parts of our application... such as how much our income was. Then he couldn't seem to keep straight the documents we needed for the various parts of the process. So things like taxes, driver's licenses, etc. He kept asking for a document that didn't exist, and he should have known didn't exist if he'd read the documents we'd already sent him.
To top all of that, he completely messed up our insurance paperwork by informing us that we didn't need any additional homeowners insurance on top of the insurance that comes with the condominium. So we thought we were fine, since he made it sound like he'd looked into this carefully... only to find out that no, that didn't count, and we therefore might lose the bid on the house if the bank didn't let us submit proof of insurance late.
And to finish off this shortened version of the angry email I sent to the bank, he was all but impossible to get a hold of. We had his email address, his office phone number, a secure email line via the bank's website, and even his cell phone... and the jerk wouldn't respond to any of those, unless you chain-called him every five minutes until he picked up.
So, for any people looking to buy a house, and who would like to avoid this trainwreck, please make sure you avoid one Stephen Kik, of Lake Michigan Credit Union. I can't speak for the rest of LMCU's staff, beyond that this was by far the absolute worst service I've had from any employee there. But yeah, avoid like the plague.
Normally, if you have so many problems with a mortgage loan officer, you can switch to another one with limited issues. Unfortunately, when we tried to do that, the person who would authorize and oversee that transition was on vacation. Because apparently everyone takes vacations in January. So we had to stick with the uncommunicative, avoidant, absent-minded dunce for the entire thing, and it annoys me to this day that he probably made money from the whole debacle.
We scheduled a walkthrough to make sure the place was still as we expected it to be, and to check on the new sump pump. Everything was in order, and in fact, the seller was there and even gave us a set of keys. He wasn't even entirely moved out yet, so that was nice of him. He also showed us how to use the gas fireplace and gave us the day for trash pickup and such.
The closing itself was both annoying and anti-climactic. We had to drive about an hour to the western shore of the state to sign something like 150 pages of paperwork. The only bright point to it was that our realtor also came with, and she got us a nice blue teapot, some mugs, and some tea. Since I don't actually have a decorative teapot, this was kind of nice. We took her out to lunch afterwards.
All that remained was waiting for the seller to get done with moving out. Then we could start moving in. Next week's entry will cover furniture hunting and the actual process of moving in.
------------------------------------
So there was a bunch of annoying paperwork that went with putting the offer in, but thankfully that can all be done online these days, somehow, and all I really had to do was read a bunch of legalese in .pdf format, then sign at the appropriate places. Reading it was optional, even, but it's never a good idea to sign something without reading it...
After we put in the offer, there was the painful waiting period while the other offers went in, were checked over, and a decision was made on which offer to take. Fortunately, our offer was accepted. Had it not been, we would have been back to square one, basically.
Thus far, the process had been exhausting, but relatively straightforward. Now began the back and forth between waiting and flailing frantically. Communication came in bursts, with much waiting between each burst, and much activity directly afterwards.
Complications With the Seller
There was the inspection first. We hired an inspector to do a general inspection, which came back with a few oddities, but no major problems. The sump pump was broken. The garage door will happily crush small children or pets to death. And there were some strange chewmarks on the deck. But that was it. No water damage, all the appliances in working order, etc.The broken sump pump was of sufficient worry to me to request it be replaced before we moved in, so there was a disagreement with the seller about that... After much back and forth (like, a week's worth of back and forth), and after he found out the sump pump was the owner's responsibility, he finally paid for a new one. (All of $150, and him receiving literal thousands of dollars on the sale of this home. Ugh.)
Unfortunately, that wasn't all. I'm sensitive to mold, so I had to hire a second inspector to do a proper mold test. No sense moving into a place and then finding out I couldn't live in half of it. To my horror, the mold test did come back with toxic black mold spores, which was almost enough for us to call it quits on the entire place. But there hadn't been water damage, so we suspected perhaps the sump pump was the problem. But then we had to bargain with the seller for who was paying for any mold remediation costs... which was a mess. I think it took another week or so before we were able to get the seller to agree on splitting the cost. In the meantime, he threatened to back out of the sale, which was extremely frustrating and nerve-wracking to me, given how much time we'd spent on this place.
The mold cleanup ended up being little more than replacing the sump pump and cleaning the carpets, and the second test came back without any toxic black mold spores, so thankfully I think we dodged most of that bullet. I'm breathing the basement air at present and don't feel hideous or particularly out of sorts, but I guess we'll see how the weeks progress.
Prior to those messes, the seller had originally offered us all the furniture save a few pieces in the home. Since it was nice stuff, well matched and coordinated, we were excited and wanted to take him up on it. We offered a reasonable price, specifying particular pieces we really liked. Then there was nothing for half a week. We then heard back that he was going to keep most of what we'd liked, but did we want anything that wasn't already spoken for in the downstairs? We did, and offered an appropriate price for those pieces... only to hear back a couple days later that, "just kidding, I'm taking everything but these pieces you didn't want, which you can have for a ridiculous price." I was pretty annoyed with the seller after that.
The final headache with the seller came after the bank had appraised the home, and they decided the place was worth about $4k less than we'd offered for it. For some reason, they wouldn't redo the appraisal, and so we were stuck figuring out what to do about that last $4k. The options were: pay the $4k up front, negotiate with the seller to lower the purchase price by $4k, or negotiate some kind of compromise. We really didn't want to just pony up $4k unless we absolutely had to, as our bank account tends to be below $10k at all times... so we attempted to negotiate. Thankfully, this was near the end of the process, and the seller was willing to split the cost. He dropped the purchase price $2k, and we ponied up the remaining $2k.
The Trainwreck Mortgage Loan Officer
And that was just the issues with the seller. The mortgage loan officer was an entirely different mess, of the type I'd more call a trainwreck than an anxiety-provoking annoyance.The wreck actually started after we put in our application for "preapproval." We heard from him briefly, saying he was going to try to finish our application before the end of the week... and then utter silence for basically the whole of the next week, until we emailed... at which point we found out he was on vacation and hadn't bothered to tell anyone. Including the realtor who had recommended him to us.
When he got back from his unannounced vacation, we tried to contact him again, and succeeded... only to find out that he'd somehow lost vital parts of our application... such as how much our income was. Then he couldn't seem to keep straight the documents we needed for the various parts of the process. So things like taxes, driver's licenses, etc. He kept asking for a document that didn't exist, and he should have known didn't exist if he'd read the documents we'd already sent him.
To top all of that, he completely messed up our insurance paperwork by informing us that we didn't need any additional homeowners insurance on top of the insurance that comes with the condominium. So we thought we were fine, since he made it sound like he'd looked into this carefully... only to find out that no, that didn't count, and we therefore might lose the bid on the house if the bank didn't let us submit proof of insurance late.
And to finish off this shortened version of the angry email I sent to the bank, he was all but impossible to get a hold of. We had his email address, his office phone number, a secure email line via the bank's website, and even his cell phone... and the jerk wouldn't respond to any of those, unless you chain-called him every five minutes until he picked up.
So, for any people looking to buy a house, and who would like to avoid this trainwreck, please make sure you avoid one Stephen Kik, of Lake Michigan Credit Union. I can't speak for the rest of LMCU's staff, beyond that this was by far the absolute worst service I've had from any employee there. But yeah, avoid like the plague.
Normally, if you have so many problems with a mortgage loan officer, you can switch to another one with limited issues. Unfortunately, when we tried to do that, the person who would authorize and oversee that transition was on vacation. Because apparently everyone takes vacations in January. So we had to stick with the uncommunicative, avoidant, absent-minded dunce for the entire thing, and it annoys me to this day that he probably made money from the whole debacle.
But In The End...
After dealing with those two sanity-shredding facets of the process, we did manage to get bank approval for our offer, a closing date set, and all our funds straightened out. My grandmother kindly gifted us with some of the money needed for the 20% down payment, and my parents loaned us the rest. These days, you don't strictly have to do a 20% down payment, but if you don't, they make you have an escrow account and you lose access to your money. It's basically an extra tax on the poor. We were thankfully able to opt out of that mess.We scheduled a walkthrough to make sure the place was still as we expected it to be, and to check on the new sump pump. Everything was in order, and in fact, the seller was there and even gave us a set of keys. He wasn't even entirely moved out yet, so that was nice of him. He also showed us how to use the gas fireplace and gave us the day for trash pickup and such.
The closing itself was both annoying and anti-climactic. We had to drive about an hour to the western shore of the state to sign something like 150 pages of paperwork. The only bright point to it was that our realtor also came with, and she got us a nice blue teapot, some mugs, and some tea. Since I don't actually have a decorative teapot, this was kind of nice. We took her out to lunch afterwards.
All that remained was waiting for the seller to get done with moving out. Then we could start moving in. Next week's entry will cover furniture hunting and the actual process of moving in.
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