On Super bowl weekend, I found a house a really liked, but Emily was out of town. So we went back to see it with our agent on the following Wednesday, and then put an offer together. Greg called the listing agent first thing the following morning to submit it, only to find out the sellers had accepted another offer. It was "supremely disappointing" according to my twitter feed. So after stewing for a couple days, we got back on the horse and went house hunting over the weekend. We found a townhouse in Oakton we really liked and decided to move forward with an offer first thing on Monday. Today we got a counter offer back that we are accepting, so, barring anymore unforseen shenanigans, I think we'll have a ratified contract later tonight or early tomorrow.
Which brings me to the issue of financing. We elected to go with BOA, as they had good rates listed on their website that were competitive with the federal credit unions. But as it turns out, their mortgage department and their consumer banking department don't talk to each other or deal with each other hardly at all. So our loan officer was some schmo who knew less than I did about mortgages1. So after out offer nearly falling through because the banker handling our mortgage application isn't really a loan specialist, Greg came to the rescue with a contact (a Vice President, no less) in the mortgage department. In one afternoon of phone calls, she got us a way better rate on the same loan product, including an increased loan amount, and churned out an approval letter. All things our previous loan officer told us it would take days to accomplish.
So, I've accomplished very little actual work today, because I spent all day on the phone with bank/real estate people. But, it sounds like we're very very close to finalizing a deal. so in the end it will all be worth it. Hopefully it means we'll have something extra to celebrate tomorrow at dinner in addition to the presence of one Mr. Morris, fresh off his NSA mind-rape session.
1: I can't tell you the number of times I've said "All I know about real estate I've learned from the internet" during the past couple weeks. It's going to the title of my upcoming book, alternatively titled "my wife's cousin's husband is also my awesome realtor."
Which brings me to the issue of financing. We elected to go with BOA, as they had good rates listed on their website that were competitive with the federal credit unions. But as it turns out, their mortgage department and their consumer banking department don't talk to each other or deal with each other hardly at all. So our loan officer was some schmo who knew less than I did about mortgages1. So after out offer nearly falling through because the banker handling our mortgage application isn't really a loan specialist, Greg came to the rescue with a contact (a Vice President, no less) in the mortgage department. In one afternoon of phone calls, she got us a way better rate on the same loan product, including an increased loan amount, and churned out an approval letter. All things our previous loan officer told us it would take days to accomplish.
So, I've accomplished very little actual work today, because I spent all day on the phone with bank/real estate people. But, it sounds like we're very very close to finalizing a deal. so in the end it will all be worth it. Hopefully it means we'll have something extra to celebrate tomorrow at dinner in addition to the presence of one Mr. Morris, fresh off his NSA mind-rape session.
1: I can't tell you the number of times I've said "All I know about real estate I've learned from the internet" during the past couple weeks. It's going to the title of my upcoming book, alternatively titled "my wife's cousin's husband is also my awesome realtor."
