I'm Back...Did You Miss Me?

It's Monday morning. The boys slept until 7, and for the first time in 6 weeks, I am not on my way to camp. And what a few weeks has it been! Between being a camp director, selling and buying houses, being pregnant, and attemping to be a wife and a mom, I've felt like a juggler in a circus and not a very good one at that. My plan is to take each one of those "balls" and tell you all about what you've missed in the last few weeks. I'd thought I'd start with the drama-o-houses.



In Romeo & Juliet, the guy at the end (no, I did not brush up on my Shakepeare before using the analogy) says, "a curse on both your houses." Yep, I think that same guy must have overseen the process for the sell of our house on Cranberry. We never expected to be moving in the middle of camp. It was supposed to take 4-6 months to sell our house, so we thought it would be smart to get it on the market as soon as possible. Our goal was to be in the new house before the baby comes. Little did we know that we'd get a buyer in less than a month. People kept saying we were lucky, but since we don't believe in luck, I'm gonna go with God. This was God's way of telling us we were on the correct path, right? So shouldn't that mean that everything was going to go smoothly? No so much!



You all know about the "betrayal" that occured on the Glenmore house, but the God-story there is obvious. We love our new house and the people we bought it from. They have been so incredibly patient with us and all the blips in the road. Can you believe we haven't even closed on this house yet (tomorrow at 5:00 pm)?



We moved in the house on the 20th of July, one day before we were supposed to close on Cranberry, and two days before Hubner...or so we thought. An hour and a half before the scheduled close on Cranberry, we got the call. We weren't closing that day. After some deep investigation on the part of my realtor (and not the buyer's realtor) we found that there was some mistake made on the part of the underwriter on the buyer's loan. So signed a few papers and rescheduled for that Friday, the 25th. Again, the day of, we find out we're not closing, but this time the worm hole of incompetence widens. It turns out that their was some misappropriation (not in an illegal kind of way) of funds on the buyer's loan which increased the total amount of their loan. So we had to sign some more papers, fax them back and forth, and hope that some day we'll close. We were seriously wondering if this thing would ever happen, and we were already living in our new house. Then we find out that the buyer's have been given final approval for their loan, and have had it for a while. So really, we're just waiting on the underwriter and the lender. Come Wednesday (the 30th), we had a tentative double closing booked for Thursday, and things were looking good. And then Thursday came, and again we were waiting on the underwriter and again the incompetence grew. All she had to do was say "pay the loan." That's it! How hard is that? Why do you need 3 days (no, two weeks) to do that? Why? You can guess where this is going...we didn't close on Thursday either. So here we are on the last day of camp. Okay, I missed my great-grandmother's funeral five years ago so I wouldn't miss my last day of Camp All-American (given I was moving 12 hours away and I did go down for the wake, but still). Around 11:00 am, Steph (my fabulous realtor who I highly, highly recommend) calls with the good news. We were clear to close. So I say that I would prefer not to close between 3:00 and 4:00 because that is my last parent assembly and I didn't want to miss it. When she calls me back with the time, you can guess by now what it is going to be, right? Yep. 3:00! It was the only time they could do it and get it done that day. So, in tears, I leave camp at 2:30 to get to Bowie by 3:00. Now, do you know what I'm going to say next yet? You should. I did! We sat there, waiting, for two hours before we actually signed papers. Oops, I left out a slight detail...we were scheduled to close on Hubner at 7:00 that night. I could have stayed for the assembly, and we didn't end up closing on Hubner because the title company wired the money too late. Like I said, we'll close on Hubner on Tuesday at 5:00 pm.

Incompetence! That is how I would describe the people involved in the process. From the realtor to the lender to the underwriter to the title company, it's hard to say where it all started or who is most at fault, but I've never been so frustrated...and here's the thing, I had absolutely no control (shocking). So if you're buying or selling a house anytime soon, think twice before using Metropolitan Mortgage Group, Chase Bank, Millenium Title Company, or Zeny the realtor (don't know her last name).

Now on the other side of things, the process the buy this house, has been smooth sailing (with the exception of the Cranberry house). We went through Resource Mortgage Group. Frank & Rebecca over there have been awesome. They even called me a couple times just to see how I was doing. American Title Company in Ellicott City has been amazing as well...and so on top of things. I highly recommend them. And lastly, as far as realtors go, I say go for Stephanie Andrews. She went above and beyond over and over again. In fact, I wish I could have given the other realtor's commission to Steph. She did most of the work.

At the end of story, I still sold a house & will buy another house. Although currently, I own nothing, but I have a nice chunk of money out there is Mulah Land somewhere between two banks. We love this house. It just works for our family. Now I need to head off to cancel a gym membership, so I'll fill you in on camp another time soon (I promise). I've missed writing as much as you guys have missed reading.

Thanks for being patient with me.