at least we're out
monday, may 21, 2012


once again, it looks like our hope to own a home isn't going to happen. the short of it: we have to close by friday or the owner wants us out of the house by friday. he originally gave us until the end of the month. two days later, without us even contacting him in any way, he changed it to the 25th. thing is, we have the rest of the down payment. what we don't have is the extra $1000 in reserves the lender apparently wants us to have. and while the realtor keeps saying he's going to make sure we have that money and we will close, that money never shows up. if it's not in the bank by tomorrow, it will still be "pending" come friday (unless we're handed cash), and i doubt we'll close with a pending transaction.

so saxy and i are starting to let go of the house. i've looked into an apartment that would give us 2 bedrooms and is only 200 square feet smaller for about $70 less than we'd be paying if buying. if we get a single floor apartment, the layout is pretty similar to the house, though i doubt it will have nearly as much light. my biggest concern is getting us in in one day. if we have to pay for a motel for a few days, we'll end up short on any deposits we need. plus there's the actual moving of the stuff and moving utilities again and all that. it's headache causing.

but here's the thing: we're out of the toxic nightmare we were in before this. because of that, everyone, including the cats, is doing better. especially logan, who was losing hair despite the flea baths and throwing up two or three times a day. the throwing up has lessened significantly, and both boys are getting their fur back in. so even if we don't end up closing on this house, it did manage to do one thing: it got us out of a really bad place and has given us the opportunity to find a healthier place to live. and for that, i'm grateful.

but it's definitely been a fiasco, and everyone has a part in the craziness. i was talking tot he owner about things i shouldn't have been (to be fair, i didn't know he'd go off the rails the way he did) and backed up on signing a lease agreement at the insistence of the realtor. the realtor didn't stay on top of things and make get an extension when the end date for the early move in passed (and to be fair to him, i doubt the owner would have signed another extension, but he should have tried). the loan guy has apparently been lazy about dealing with the loan, and every time i talked to him, he was nonspecific and more than a bit of an ass. the money from saxy's folks drove him bat-shit crazy. and getting a definite answer from him on anything, even how much money we actually need, has been near impossible (his last answer was, "about $2500"; now, shouldn't he KNOW the specific number?).

but the biggest problem has been the owner. this man called us twice with closing dates. not the realtor, the owner. he asked me for information that either a) he didn't need to know (not that i knew that) or b) that he should have gotten from the realtor if it was necessary for him to know it. he also asked about financial information, and if i'd been smart, i would have kept my mouth shut and spoken with the realtor on the phone (since there was a point where, for some reason, i thought i was texting the realtor but was actually texting the owner; no, not sure why i thought that, but i was definitely confused). when we started talking with the owner about the possible lease, he sounded reasonable. then the realtor told us not to go into a lease (i think the owner was starting to show his frustration with the process with the realtor, and the realtor was almost certain the owner would put us in an expensive lease then pull the sale, which, yea, was partly motivated by him losing his commission, but also, i just think he saw something else going on too), so we told the owner we wanted to wait a little longer. and that's when the crap really hit the fan. the owner gave us until the end of this month to close. two days later, he told us he'd fired the realtor and we had to move out in 10 days. the realtor got him to agree to letting us try to close in 10 days, but if we don't, we have to be out. most of this is either in voice mail messages or text messages, so there's some question about whether he CAN throw us out, but without the extension or the lease, we're no longer under any kind of contract.

saxy will be checking with a real estate lawyer to see what rights we have. if we've got a problem and definitely have to be out or closed by friday, he'll call the realtor and tell him we need whatever arrangement for the remaining $850 in the bank no later than wednesday if they don't want it to be pending. there's no way we can come up with that money, so it's on the realtor's shoulders, assuming all his offers to work it out were legit. if we don't have to be out, saxy will call the sheriff or court or whoever to make them aware of the situation. and at some point we'll have to let the owner know that he needs to give us our eviction in writing then start the actual eviction process. by the time he's done with all that, we will be gone, we're just concerned about how little time we have to pack and get into an apartment. they'll want to do a credit check and all that stuff, so it's unlikely they can get us in the same day.

like i said, it's a mess (it was so bad last week, i was getting physically ill from the stress; not something i usually do), and it really has me hesitant on trying a third time. mind you, that wasn't our plan this time. we were looking for a rent to own, but there wasn't supposed to be all this drama. and i really hate giving up this house, i LOVE it, but not enough to even consider approaching the owner again about a lease. anyone who can change his mind in two days without the people affected by the change doing anything to instigate the change is NOT a good person to have as a landlord, so there's no way in hell i'd consider a lease/rental agreement with this guy now. in a way, i'm almost glad the realtor nixed the lease. yes, it put us in a really bad position, but it also showed this guy's true volatility. who knows what it saved us from. mind you, it may have saved us from nothing, but it doesn't seem to take much to push this guy's buttons, and from his behavior earlier, he's something of a control freak even when he doesn't have as big a clue on how things work as he thinks he does. i'm not saying the others didn't play a part in the fiasco as well, i'm just saying out of them all, the owner was the craziest. the realtor made his mistakes, but he was SANE, never changed his story, and kept trying to reach a closing, which was what we wanted.

but, really, i do think the most important part of all this is that we're out of the mess that was making us sick and sucking down our finances. heck, being in the apartment may end up being a bit of a space problem (we'll need a small storage unit for things like our lawn tools and the stuff we were storing in the garage), but it is cheaper than the house and gives us more time to stabilize ourselves. if this deal falls through, which i think at this point it will, we'll be in a better place in a year or two. interest and housing prices won't be so low, but that's probably the only negative at this point. saxy will be at his employer at least a year with steady income, and we'll have reestablished our credit a bit more. all things that would help in the future.

but, yea, still hoping we close. as much as being out of the previous nightmare is a very good thing, i love this house and hate letting it go even more than the house we tried to buy a few years back. all we can do now is hope for the best and prepare for the worst.