Hullo from the "there be dragons here" area of MA

[phil]

you could try placing a want add for a fridge in the free section. sure someone may flag it as they should really go in wanted , but chances are high someone has a "beer fridge" and just needs a poke to realize you;d pick it up.

When I bought, it was not a house my (buyers) agent had listed. I got the feeling that they are trained to keep the seller and buyer from talking, perhaps to prevent people from waiting and cutting the agent out after a delay or perhaps an argument would affect the sale. Perhaps the seller didnt' want to discuss as the older guy had passed so they may have been upset.
This often prevents info from being passed on. I know if i sold my house I could tell a buyer a lot about things he couldn't see, for example what was insulated and what wasn't and with what. perhaps some history although I didn't inherit much. I asked the agent to ask for any old photos or documents of history and received nothing. if I did it again I might stay clear until closing but I felt I missed out on a lot that they could have told me. If I was in that position again I think I'd just be tempted to go knock on the door and talk to them without the agent, maybe right after closing if not during the sale. otherwise you only get the half that they can remember of what they told the agent and I know myself I could easily spend an afternoon pointing out all the little projects I took on. when I bought it was different as they had done almost nothing but I still felt happy that at least they hadn't done a real lot of silly renos that couldn't be undone.
there are perhaps a lot of instances where an owner has done a lot but not under permit so they dont' want to say what they have done and what they have snuck through without permits etc. some sellers are probably willing to be a lot more free with such info than others.

an example might be , the sewer plugged three times from roots from said tree. they know it will plug again but it isn't collapsed. a new owner could be warned of such and might be able to tackle the tree roots rather than full replacement of the sewer. this sort of info often would just go unspoken so long as it isn't plugged at viewing.

[Nicholas]

Yes Lily, if time elapsed, do another final walkthrough.

When I bought, it was not a house my (buyers) agent had listed.....etc.

I had a buyer agent, for this house. Apparently nobody that wanted this house could get through to the seller agent, but my agent had answers right away, proof to me that there was a behind the curtain knowledge. Probably the MLS listing.

I had a seller agent for my Ft Laud house, the first thing she said to me was say nothing. I had to practice sitting in the corner twirling my thumbs and say "ask agent" when showed by sharing realtors. Of course there were positives I wanted to mention but even that could open up a can of worms.

Now, disclosures. I understand that anything you tell the selling agent has to be disclosed to buyer. Example, My house records say built in 1941, I know its a lot older. Should that be disclosed? Would that turn off, or in my case, turn on a buyer?

Then there is the mysterious utility hook up that is a positive for me, not sure I can bring that up, long story....

[phil]

lol comes with free cable and shared wifi .. for example

[Lily left the valley]

First call today was from our landlady, asking if we had a closing date yet, as she wasn't sure where things stood for our move out schedule. She also let me know she still hadn't heard from mortgage guy in regards to getting her verbal or written acknowledgement of timely payment of February rent. I told her at this point, I wasn't sure she ever would, but thanked her for letting me know.

Had another exchange today from realtor who called mortgage guy himself after finding out we still hadn't heard diddly. The seller, it turns out, has started to drive their realtor bananas wondering why we haven't closed yet as well, so that's another reason why we keep hearing from ours--he's worried the seller is about to walk since we are so far out of even the extensions of the extensions of our contract.

Supposedly, mortgage guy is claiming we are now just waiting for exactly what we were waiting for four weeks ago--final clear to close. Mortgage guy told our realtor that we should close on Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. I laughed bitterly when this was relayed, then caught myself and apologized to our realtor since it's not his fault I feel like I'm stuck in an infinite loop of words and assurances from the bank. At this point, I think he completely understands that any negatives I utter are always directed towards the mortgage folks, but I still feel the need to be clear when I do such. Our realtor did reveal to me that the seller's realtor actually asked him recently, "How does <bank> stay in business?"

I did speak to our realtor about another walk through, and he said it wouldn't be an issue at all. He also mentioned that he stopped by the house the other day when he was close by to check on the oil level in the tank, and it was still near to ¹/₄ full. Apparently the seller's realtor was concerned there might need to be another delivery made before closing. But with the 40/50° F daytime weather we've had the last few days and should continue to have for at least a few more, we thought the fuel level would be more than fine if closing will indeed happen as mortgage guy is claiming.

One thing we did decide last night was that since we're paying the full month of March's rent upfront anyway, we're going to likely go back to the plan of only moving over non-essentials first, as that way it will give us more time to find a fridge at a cheaper price or just buy one outright after his next paycheck. Same with the washer/dryer. We have all those here, so it seemed smartest to wait unless we find a real steal in the meantime.

I did have the strangest dream last night about lever lock keys. I barely remember it, but wooo...I had no idea such keys could be considered a commodity if my dream is right. At least the dream was hilarious and not ominous.

[Lily left the valley]

The phone rang just as I found the following in my e-mail box late afternoon today from the law office:

I just got the clear to close. We can schedule for Thursday or Friday of next week. Which day is better?

The phone call was from our realtor, asking if we'd heard word, and that he'd called mortgage guy earlier. I told him I had done the same, but gotten the voicemail. However, here was this e-mail in my box from the law office...Then we discussed why Thursday would be better, that I'd have to check with spouse, and depending on when that day closing would be, whether we'd do the final walk through the day before or morning of. Called spouse right away after that, and he also voted for Thursday. So I wrote back Thursday if at all possible, but I've not yet heard back a definite after sending our response.

When spouse called a bit ago to tell me he was on his way home, he babbled about "something-something insurance change", but apparently not really a change in price. It sounded like it might have to do with the overage on the mortgage somehow, but we really don't know. He was genuinely confused about whether the coverage overall changed, or the wording or what. Neither of us understand it, and now it's too late for me to call and ask our insurance lady what's what. What's weirder is she told spouse they were trying to push for a Tuesday close! I have a feeling when they talked to our realtor, he squashed that. He knew I wanted a buffer in case any of the math turned out to be wrong--again.

The weather outside today was positively spring like. I would not be surprised if some of the bulbs I forgot to get out of the ground before the freeze aren't starting to shoot up between what snow is left.

It was so warm that I had windows flung open wide all around the apartment, and just plain shut the heat off at the thermostat. Now that it's starting to get closer to sunset, it'll be time to shut them all and let the thermo do its job in case the temps do drop a lot tonight. Every time I checked the inside temperature today, it was a firm 71° F. (I should note, that in someone's brilliance, the position of said thermostat is directly above where the boiler is that services all three apartments--including the hot water. So that spot is always a bit off compared to the rest of the apartment.)

[Deb]

Good luck Lilly! Hope and pray this is it! Oh, and I went down and checked, Mr. Murphy is locked up tightly.

[Lily left the valley]

I had two voicemails and an email from the law office waiting for me today. Here's the e-mail:

Hi Everyone: We are clear to close! I would like to schedule this for Thursday, 3/2 at 12:00 at the Worcester Registry of Deeds. Thank you.

The seller's attorney responded to "all", so we know it works for him. Realtor mentioned seeing his message and said of course it works for him as well. Mortgage guy's message was just "It's me, call me back" so I don't know if he wanted to tell me directly what I already know, or he's going to pull out some who knows what at the last minute.

I think it's really sad and disappointing that my brain even went to the fear of something like the mortgage guy pulling last minute issues on us. Hit a dog enough, and it will flinch when you raise your hand, and all that.
~~~
Phone rang while I was writing that, and sure enough, my flinching instinct was dead on.

Long story short, we lost our rate lock afterall. The bump wasn't horrific, but it's just one more nail in the coffin as to why we will never recommend our mortgage guy to anyone. The only good news that came out of that phone call was that there is no prepayment penalty, should we want to pay the loan off faster either by boosting our payments, or from a lottery win (spouse plays the one variant sometimes).

Mortgage guy also annoyed me with his general attitude in that when he told me we'd lost the rate, I uttered "Unbelievable" before my polite filter in my brain could stop it. His response was, "Well, we'll share blame on that". Which I had to bite my tongue over because I just wanted the call to end. After he said that and I took a deep breath, I just fired out a bunch of questions to him, most of which he had no answers for, and got off the phone with him.

Apparently the reason we have not received the latest bank generated closing costs is because now only the lawyer handling things for the bank does that. I told him that it would have been nice to at least see something, since we still had no idea of whether we needed to bring any money to closing or not, and he just shrugged it off. Yep, at that point I just wanted to get off the phone.

Texted spouse only the time and day for closing, he soon called back, and I thought "wow, he got done fast today", so I started telling him about the call with mortgage guy until I heard the sound of an LV door closing and asked him, "Wait, are you still working?" He was, but he said he was glad he called because at least he knew all the possible info that I knew in case someone called him directly.

Emotionally, I'm actually a little surprised that I'm not mad or even upset. At this point, I'm just accepting that is all part of the journey on the Sloop of Frustration.

[Lily left the valley]

Good luck Lilly! Hope and pray this is it! Oh, and I went down and checked, Mr. Murphy is locked up tightly.

Deb, I swear I've met his distant cousin, and he works as a mortgage officer. When we meet him on Thursday, I think I'm going to ask him if anyone in his family has the last name Murphy.

Thank you so much for keeping at least Mr. Murphy at bay.

[eclecticcottage]

The only good news that came out of that phone call was that there is no prepayment penalty, should we want to pay the loan off faster either by boosting our payments, or from a lottery win (spouse plays the one variant sometimes).

Pssst....don't pay bigger payments. Make payments directly on the principle in addition to the regular monthly payments.

[Lily left the valley]

The only good news that came out of that phone call was that there is no prepayment penalty, should we want to pay the loan off faster either by boosting our payments, or from a lottery win (spouse plays the one variant sometimes).

Pssst....don't pay bigger payments. Make payments directly on the principle in addition to the regular monthly payments.

That's what I meant. Brain...still...overwhelmed.

So yesterday, yahoo mail was down, and I finally broke down around 3pm and called the paralegal who'd been handling the communications, only to find out that her message had changed to "I'll be out of the office for the rest of this week"! I call our realtor, and let him know about our e-mail problem, as well as what I heard on the message. He said the only thing he got in e-mail today was from her saying the same, which also said that another person (first name only, no last name) would be taking over in her absence. We then joked about how everyone who works on this mortgage with us seems to like to take vacations in the middle of things. Then after I get off the phone with him, I try to call this new person. Straight to voicemail, and no response at all. I didn't even bother to call mortgage guy because I know he'll just do the "I know nothing" routine again.

E-mail started working again around the time spouse got home, and neither he nor I had the CD emailed to us. We close tomorrow. We're supposed to have this document three days' prior to closing. We still have no idea if 1) the math for the mortgage itself is correct and 2) what the final math overall came up to be as far as what we might need to bring to closing. This irks me a lot because they've said over and over that any funds needed on our side stated in the CD we have to have a bank check for, although we could use a personal check for any last minute matters. At this point...are we at the last minute matters?

I did call the internet and electric folks today to do the switch overs. The soonest we could get internet was Tuesday of next week. They do have a wifi tower based service you can use for free if you are a customer, but it's not great at all. Spouse and I are trying to decide when to move over the essentials still. He won't know his schedule for next week until Saturday.

I'm laughing to a certain degree because our final walk through, Part Two, is at 2pm later today, and since we still might not have the CD by then...does that mean we don't close on Thursday?

How do these people stay in business? I truly want to know.

We had another clusterfudge of a showing at the apartment. I like the realtor, but he just can't grasp the concept that we're incredibly busy, and the least he can do is confirm with us once he's gotten the confirmation from a showing. This is the third time he's called less than 15 minutes before he showed up at the door, and today, he had given the viewers a ridiculous arrival window, over an hour. Of course, they didn't come until their hour was almost up. We could have made dinner and eaten by then. The second viewers didn't show, but they hadn't confirmed either. I'm glad we decided to just go ahead and make dinner when he told me that hadn't confirmed. Right now, that's the last ones he had schedule for this week that I know of, but I did specifically ask him to not schedule anything on the Thursday or Friday of this week.

Part of why I want to move out sooner is the one set of viewers the other day brought kids, and the kids started to poke around while their mom and grandmother were walking around. We do have a lot of stuff that would appeal to kids still in view, which is probably what stirred their curiosity, but that infuriated me. If I hadn't gotten up to grab a soda, I wouldn't even have realized they'd been left alone because we were in the office trying to stay out of the way. I didn't yell at them, but when I "ahem"ed, they scuttled off to find their adults. Fortunately, the folks that showed up today had no children in tow. If spouse had seen them, he would have hollared. So I'm sort of glad it was me. (And I didn't tell him because he's got enough on his mind.)