mortgage

May '92

The Mortgage Thing

    I had been holding out on closing my house until I could get a discount interest rate program--if you can stand being on the waiting list for decades without losing interest in the program, they'll give you a discount. It was a government money program, and the mortgage company told me to sit back for a few weeks and wait. They said if I wanted to call them just to feel like I was doing something progressive, they'd understand. After a few weeks, they were sorry they made the offer, despite my attempts to wait a week between calls. I began to sound like a member of AA: "Hi, my name is Marilyn. It's been four days since I called the mortgage company." I gave in at a semi-discount when it looked like my closing date was going to be missed in vain.
    That night, while watching the season finale of Wings and ready for a good night's sleep knowing I could go ahead with closing on my house, Betty my real estate agent called and said the first discount rate program was supposed to re-supplement the day after my closing date, and the seller agreed to extend my contract if I'd help pay for May's mortgage payment. Betty felt 98% sure that the rumor was true and 98% sure I'd get it, but I knew that 2% could mean that I'd miss the loan and the alternative interest rates may increase beyond my affordability. Another night of not sleeping. After twelve hours of agonizing, I agreed to stick with the decided on semi-discount rate. Friday morning Rhonda (loan officer) said we'd close on Monday at 4 o'clock. Friday afternoon Rhonda's office called and asked me to whip up some quick letters to look like my income was a little higher since the increased interest rate I'd agreed to pay meant the loan would be higher (oh, the irony. I agree to pay a higher interest to the bank, and the bank isn't sure they want to loan me more). In the middle of everything, the morning of the alleged closing, Dad stopped me from my morning routine of running out the door to get to work and started asking me if I had any qualms about this huge purchase and if I wasn't comfortable about it I could get out of it and he started getting all upset because it was such a big step that his youngest child and only daughter was making and he teared up a little bit. Paperwork Heck continued through Monday ("What's your mother's maiden name again?" "Can you fax me a Visa statement showing a minimum payment due that's less than $17.00?" "Oh, you'll definitely need a certified check" two minutes before I'm walking out the door to the closing. I'm not making up any of these.)
   SO, we all sat down at a lawyer's table and I signed lots and lots of pieces of paper, and the seller handed me the keys and said congratulations and walked out the door. I'm thinking where's all this champagne cork popping and party the mortgage people promised me? Oh, well.

6 months later…

   I'm now running into the problem of wanting to decorate my house and finding my bank account drained due to things like, oh, water bills, etc. I envision everything I'm going to do, however, so I'll take people into the future hunting lodge/country manor "Drones Room" den and say "Isn't this great?" and they say, "Uh, yeah," like, it's just a big white room, Marilyn! I did build shelves into my Drones Room closet for my video/CD collection and I chose Douglas Fir wood so when people say "Marilyn, what kind of wonderful wood are these shelves made from?" I can say with Special Agent Cooper intonation "Douglas Firs"! I was going to get a Douglas Fir Christmas tree for the same reason, but I didn't care for them.

The Marilyn Website home