Chronically Ironic

·Trying to Buy a House with Marginal Credit

So I never thought it would be possible on my shitty credit (I am in the “fair” category, but just barely) to get a home loan, but apparently, I have almost accomplished this. People buy houses every day, I just never saw myself as one of them – I was quite content to spend my life in apartments or rent houses. Well, just give me 5 weeks off of work and the internet and I can do some fucking damage.

Not really sure what spurred the whole house-hunt on, but my boyfriend and I have lived in the same house for going on two years, and apparently the house is about to crack in half from foundation problems. I live in Dallas, and it’s been a long, hot, dry-ass summer, so this is nothing new, nor is it any surprise for homeowners in Texas. I started thinking, however, that our landlord will never fix whatever’s going on, and if I am going to live in a house that’s being swallowed by the planet, dammit, I want to own that motherfucker. Reason number two was that there was a gorgeous house (on the outside, anyway) on our same street that went up for sale. $180K. I was curious to see how much I/we could qualify for, so I jumped on Lending Tree. I filled out the pre-application with very little hope. Within 10 minutes of completing the application, my phone was ringing off the hook. PEOPLE WANT YOUR MONEY. BAD. And they want your high-risk ass, too. Don’t think they don’t. The deals are not all great. BE CAREFUL. I am not even sure if what we are doing is all that great, but lo and behold, I found a mortgage/loan officer that I liked out of the 5 that called, and started working with her. The payments were going to be frightening, but holy shit, we qualified for all $180,000 of that bad boy. I looked at the house. It was just okay. I am thankful now, but was saddened that day to learn that someone else had put a contract on it already.

Somewhere in the middle of that day I figured I needed an agent representing me (and I also saw on Lending Tree that if you use one of their agents, you can get a $1000 gc from Home Depot. Which I am sure we will need.) So I call up and get me an agent. Now I am in full freakin’ house-hunting mode. This is not necessarily good, since I just had surgery three weeks before I got all into this. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop, or something like that. That doesn’t make any sense. As the devil was coursing through me, I go on a house-touring spree with my new agent friend. She, of course, is determined to get me in a house, and quickly, since I lowered my price range from $200K down to $150K. Or lower. Don’t get me wrong, she is very nice, but clients like me are probably a pain in her ass. If I had half a mil I would not be such a pain in the ass. Ahh, the joy and cart-blanche that bad credit gives one. I feel like a superstar.

Some of the houses in my price range are BUSTED and I mean, you would not want to live in them. They are not shacks, and can look deceivingly cute from the outside, but are frightening horror stories on the inside. We looked at this one house where someone had tiled all the bedrooms in, like, kitchen tile. What???? I mean, I understand what it’s like to have pets and everything, but there are tiles available that do not look like you must crack an egg or get the fuck out. One house looked awesome from the street, yet once you opened the door you were hit with a strong smell of cat piss that worked it’s way up your spine until your nerve in the back of your neck snapped your head skyward to focus on the fact that they had ripped all of the light fixtures directly off of the ceiling using nothing but someone’s caveman hands and possibly a pickaxe. One of the last houses I looked at had an amazing kitchen – I mean, AMAZING – 5-burner Jenn-Aire gas range, huge fridge, tons of new cabinets, a normal sink and a prep sink…I was so excited until I saw that the rest of the house was as big as a postage stamp. And there was a glitter ceiling. Some of you may remember that from the 70’s. Nice.

A weird thing then happened – one of the houses that I had originally found online that sadly, had a contract on it already came back on the market. Who really knows why, and I didn’t care. We piled in the Beamer 5-series that belongs to my agent and went to see this shabby-chic house. With a pool, no less. It might possibly be one of the weirdest houses ever. I am buying it.

First of all, there is a giant flag painted on the garage. It is the state flag of Texas. FOR REAL. Don’t even start looking for where I live, because that will be the first to go. The charm and the irony does not escape me, however. There is more. The living room, dining room and kitchen are normal, but the oven is the size of the oven I had in college – it’s almost as small as one of those half-ovens. That will be removed. I cook a lot. There is a bathroom in the hall. That is normal. There is a jetted Jacuzzi-type bath in the hall bathroom. That is not normal. The bedrooms are all nice, and for the most part free of weirdness, but in the master, there’s a regular bathroom with a shower – on the other side of that, same wall, there is an entrance to a large walk-in closet. Awesome, yes. Before you get to the closet part, there is a vanity counter and a mirror. No drawers, no sink…just counter and mirror. WEIRD!!! I love it. Pool is small but great, and as far as I know right now, there’s nothing weird about it. Possibly haunted with the ghost of Sam Houston due to the garage door.

Oh, and entrance to the garage from inside the house is in the guest bedroom. Odd, odd, odd. Can’t wait.

We put the offer down. They accepted with minor changes. I am now in the loan approval process. The problem with most of all this is that WE HAVE NO MONEY. The inspections that FHA (the type of loan we decided on) requires are many and not free. When they tell you that you can get in a house with no up-front money, do not believe them. It is a lie. Save about $2000, and that’s not including if you’re putting anything down. That’s just for earnest money, option fees, and inspections. And you may or may not have to pay some more at closing. I would say $5000 would be even better. But, like many, we do not really “save” money in our house. We have 401k’s and lots of “stuff.” So, while on medical leave and flat broke may not have been a great time to begin this quest. Too late. Ball is ROLLING. So now I have 10 days to get all the inspections done and qualify for the loan. Loan officer says it’s not going to be a problem.

I am a skeptic by nature, and have shitty luck, so I will finish this tale now so as not to jinx the whole scenario. To sum up: Anything’s available for a price. Try not to bite off more than you can chew. And, it is just a hard as you think it might be, and a little more confusing than you think it is. I can recommend highly a book entitled The 106 Common Mistakes Homebuyers Make (and How to Avoid Them) by Gary W. Eldred (I found it at Barnes & Noble.) I am probably screwed, but when I’m in my hall-Jacuzzi drinking wine, I won’t care anymore.

Update: I can’t believe it could actually suck worse than what I went through at the end. I am about to close in two days. I may have to write a Part Deux.

Being Poor is Cool