We first started getting concerned about our Caldwell home when it had been a week since we were told the appraisal was going to be ordered, and nobody ever contacted us. We were new in the game, we had chosen to take a risk and not use Realtors, so we weren't sure how much we were "allowed" to question our buyer's loan agent. We figured as long as we were keeping in contact with the buyers, that they were following up with the loan agent. That was our first mistake. We sat too long assuming things were happening and not having proof that they really were. It turned out, the appraisal had never been ordered. There was still paperwork that needed to be filled out, and in fact, the case was sitting on someone's desk for several days without having been touched.
We finally started contacting the lender of our buyer, whose name was CL. We've never worked with someone more unprofessional. She went behind our backs to try to change the title company that we were working with, just because she wasn't as familiar with their policies. She essentially threw a tantrum when we said "No, we have a specific closing agent that we are working with, we are staying with them." She would not return phone calls or emails, or if she ever did magically respond to an email, there was absolutely no answers in them. We finally found out that the loan was going through IHFA. Marc was able to speak with someone there, to find out that all this time the loan wasn't out of underwriting yet, there was still documents being collected and until the loan is finished being underwritten, they won't order the appraisal.
When we drew up the contract with our buyer's, we put May 15 down because it was a little more than 30 days and we thought it would be adequate time to get financing and close. We started getting 10 days out, then a week out from that contractual date and the loan agent wouldn't even communicate with us that there was no way we'd be able to close by then. We finally found out, that she had been working to try and close by May 29. What?!?! That would have been nice to know! We wouldn't have set our closing date in Utah until May 31 if we had known that the home in Idaho wouldn't close until the end of the month!! Then CL was out of the office for a week. That's usually fine and dandy if you are in contact with the people you are preparing a loan for and you have someone else in your place working to close on the loan, which she didn't.
Our stress started to skyrocket by this point. We didn't know what to do. We needed the money from the sale of the home in Idaho to work as our down payment for the home in Utah. We needed to close on our home in Utah, because Marc had been homeless for 4 weeks, and we were worried that the seller in the Utah home would end the contract if we tried to push the closing date back. We reached out to Marc's parents to float the idea of borrowing money from them for the down payment until we could sell the Idaho home. They said Yes, that would be an option available if we needed it. Neither one of us wanted to do it. It made us sick to our stomachs. We didn't ever anticipate the closing of the home to be so difficult. Not having a realtor in the end to get us to closing is what bit us in the butt. They would have shouldered a lot of the stress and known how and what to do in order to push things along. We didn't. We kept calling and emailing, but ultimately, it wasn't our loan. They didn't have to tell us anything and so they didn't.
When we found out CL was out of town, we started calling her supervisors. We had real communication from them, for about two days and then it went dead silent again. At least they were able to tell us realistically that closing by the 15 would be impossible. Closing by the 29 may still be an option, but not to plan on it.
We had to switch plans at this point. Thankfully, we had the option of Marc's parents to use as a gift fund. We decided to move forward with that plan. We figured Marc would close on Friday, May 22nd down in Utah. He would come up to load the moving truck on Saturday May 23 and then he'd drive the truck back to move in on Memorial Day, May 25. The kids and I would stay in the empty home until Friday, May 29, to let them finish school, and hopefully be able to close on the home before officially "moving" to Utah.
We proceeded with those plans. I worked like crazy to get everything packed. I felt like I had done so much already, that I really had things under control. I don't know if its possible to be completely ready when it's time to load up the truck. In our 7 moves, we've never had the entire house packed up and completely empty on moving day. This move proved to be no different.
Because we had to use "gift funds" and their was a typo in the paperwork for the wiring of funds, it cost us an entire business day. We were not able to close on Friday like we had hoped. We decided to go with the original plans, and Marc would just have to drive the moving truck to work on Tuesday and he'd unload on Tuesday instead.
I took my kids over for dinner at my Mom's house on Friday night. The girls stayed the night with her, while the boys stayed the night at their cousin's house.I came home to the house and Marc arrived not too long after from Utah. Having the kids gone allowed Marc and I to take down all the beds that night and not have them under foot Saturday morning. As we sat talking on Friday night, I had a brief emotional break down. Marc finally said, "if the whole point of you staying in the empty house is so the kids can go to Kindergarten Graduation and the boys can have their awards ceremony on Friday, then what's the point of going to school Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday? Why don't you come down with me, get away from all of this for a little bit, and come back for the last day of school and to clean the house?"
The moving truck was not at the location in Caldwell that we thought it was, it turned out to be 15 minutes away in Nampa. As soon as Marc was back with the truck, we had people coming out of the woodwork to help us. Derek Hawkley, the Kirkman's, the Marshall's, The Aydelottes, The John's, the Buckley's, Dave Hughes, my brother Scott and Palmer, Mike Garner, Sheri Melendez, the Garcia boys, Kyle Aurdahl, Dwain Loughney, I'm sure there's more that I'm missing. There was a que of people standing around holding boxes because only so many people could be inside the truck finding spots for everything. We had all of the furniture and most of the boxes in the truck in about an hour. We knew there was another family moving that day, so we tried to send as many people as possible over their direction while we tried to figure out the last little bit.
It became apparent that not all of our stuff would fit in the truck. Not having our van and the bike carrier really hurt us. We had nowhere for the bikes, the lawn mower, nor lots of little small things from the garage or cleaning items that I still needed to clean the house. Marc and I did our best to stuff the moving truck to the gills. We packed the rental car as tight as we could, managing to leave two spots for kids to sit in the back. We stayed the night at my Mom and Dad's house that night, went to church at my brother Jason's (they had 9:00 church) and hit the road shortly after.
That night we stayed with Brett and Jolynn Greenwood. Brett was one of Marc's roommates in college, and Jolynn was one of his coworkers at Sports Camps. He set them up on a blind date, and they were married a few months later. Marc reconnected with them at his marathon last year. They graciously let Marc stay with them a few days while he was homeless, and then they took us in (very last minute) so we didn't have to pay for a hotel while we were waiting for our house to close. They were extremely hospitable, generous, and merciful to our little family. Their son Justin was turning 8 while we were there and they just right up and included us in all the festivities like my kids had always been friends with Justin. Jolynn even took time out of our crazy day to shuttle the kids and I up to Midvale where we met up with Marc for lunch and to have a car while we waited for the closing to happen. The closing was supposed to have happened right around lunch time, Marc was going to attend the closing and meet us at the new house, but the paperwork wasn't ready and it kept getting pushed back until 4:30 at night.
We almost didn't get to get in the new house that night after closing. Because things weren't finalized until after 5:00 at night, the government recording office had closed and wouldn't be able to record the transaction. However, because we were able to prove that we had fully funded the seller, we were able to convince their realtor to give our realtor the lock key code.
We drove up to Suncrest, our new neighbors noticed we were there. Felicia Olvera had already offered to watch my kids while we moved in. They ended up feeding us dinner while we waited for Jason to come up with the keys. Other neighbors were notified that we were there and slowly started milling around by the moving truck. Finally, Jason was able to come up and get our key. He even stayed to help unload the truck for a little bit! That absolutely floored me. We had all the furniture and heavy things in the house in less than an hour. We quickly got Isabel and Lexi's bed set up. I think we put the kids to bed around 11:00 at night. It was late, we were incredibly tired, yet so happy to be in our new home.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment