We discovered that one of the credit reporting agencies had information on my fiancé’s that didn’t belong.  They had confused him with his brother and it showed over $50,000 in defaulted credit, addresses, an AKA and a lien.  His brother swears he never used his name to get credit; I have my doubts.  We filed a dispute with the reporting agency, and a month later we got notification of the results.  They had removed a couple things, but most of the derogatory stuff was still there.  His FICO score was around 599.  We filed another dispute.  Wait 30 days for the results.  A couple more things had been removed, but not all.  Another dispute, more bad results.  After the third dispute, all that was left was one credit card with a delinquent amount of over $10,000 that belonged to Mr. Deadbeat.  We filed a fourth dispute, but they refused to remove the last item; determining it belonged to Rick.

Rick contacted the credit card company in question and told him of his dilemma.  They said if he would mail them a copy of his driver’s license and social security card, they would review and contact him with the results. 

Next fun thing, guess who didn’t have a social security card?  So now he gets to take a trip to the Los Angeles Social Security office to get a new SS card.  Minimum wait: 2 weeks.

So much for our plans to move before Christmas.  Wedding by March?  Maybe not.

FINALLY, we got all our ducks in a row; the credit card company sent a letter to all 3 reporting agencies, he has a new social security card, and clean credit with a new FICO score of 769. Whoohoo!

By this time it is April 2009.  The wedding has already been postponed because we didn’t want to spend money on a wedding in case we needed all our savings to get into the house. 

When we first started in September, we were looking at houses.  I wanted 2 bathrooms so I could enjoy the Sunday funnies without Rick doing the peepee dance in the hall.  I wanted a garage.  I wanted a decent size kitchen so I had room to store my stuff and counter space to cook.  We needed a big enough yard for our dogs.  And I wanted a POOL!

When the credit crisis started and we couldn’t get it cleared, we stopped looking and waited until everything was cleared up.  Prices were steadily dropping during that time.  The loan officer suggested I put in an application to borrow money against any equity I might have on my home in case I needed it for repairs to get it rental ready or to help with getting into the new house.  By the time I got the application filled out and ready to turn in, she told me I might as well not bother because my house had dropped in value to $50,000.  Now I have no choice, I’m upside down on my house.  My next door neighbor approached me about a lease with an option to buy.  Okay, renter problem might be solved.

Once the credit was cleared up, we started looking again.  Instead of dragging Rick along, the realtor and I would preview them and if I found something I liked we would take him back to look at it.  We looked at a lot of houses with pools.  Most of them were in bad shape and needed more repairs than we would be able to afford or do ourselves.  Many had wood roofs, which meant it would either not qualify for FHA or the insurance company may refuse to insure it.  I didn’t want to take the chance, so we decided to skip the homes with a shake roof.

Summer came, and homes started going contingent as soon as they hit the market.  We would try to make an appointment to see a house and it would be gone before we could get one.  People figured out that the appraisers were afraid to appraise too high in light of the recent fiasco, so they would overbid, counting on the appraiser to bring the price down.  Many deals lost, some people got killer deals.  People were making multiple offers on multiple homes, as much as $30,000 over asking price. 

We had been concentrating on older parts of town, I liked mature landscaping and the personality of older homes, plus they were cheaper per square foot than newer ones.  When we ran out of homes with pools, we switched to more square footage, no pool.  As homes quickly went off the market, the choices narrowed.  We started looking in newer areas; the prices had dropped more.  I was weighing whether I wanted a newer house further out of town and increase my driving time and gasoline bill, or closer to town and something that will eventually need updating. 

Then we found it.  It was a gorgeous almost new home about 2 miles north of where I live now in a newer housing area.  It was 3 bedrooms, 3 full baths, a huge great room/dining area and a GORGEOUS kitchen with granite, black appliances, a walk in pantry and lots of cupboards for all my stuff.  The price was crazy cheap.  We kept looking around for what could be wrong with it.  Other than a broken window, a chipped marble tile in the hall, a hole in the wall behind the front door and pigeon poop over the door where they roosted on the ledge, we could see nothing wrong.  No backyard landscaping, but that would be easy to fix.  It was built in a U shape with a portico, there was a courtyard in the middle.  I was already imagining a wrought iron gate with a doorbell and tropical plants and a fountain.  In 2005, the house sold new for $478,000.  Asking price?  $179,000 - $67 per square foot; when other homes were going for $100+.  It seemed too good to be true.  We took Rick to see it on the weekend and made an offer on the following Monday.  We are told the house is in “short sale” but it had already had a previous rejected offer so it should be a breeze since the person at the bank has already been assigned.  The seller accepted our offer of $177k plus 3% on closing costs.  Onward to the bank and wait.  And get our loan approved.

 The House

Now its mid June. 

I had delayed doing my 2008 taxes because I had a lot of Avon paperwork to do.  It’s a lot of extra work, but the payoff is nice.  My average state and federal income tax refunds total around $4000 per year.  Not bad for delivering makeup and perfume to coworkers biweekly and getting a discount on my Avon too.

Dayna, the loan person tells me Rick and I are taking too many deductions on our taxes and it will effect the amount of income after taxes we will show to qualify for the loan.  Rick and I both pay a portion of our health benefits, we write the premiums off as un-reimbursed medical expenses.  She told me when I do my taxes to only claim my interest on the house and timeshare, nothing else.  I took a $1500 hit on my tax refund. 

Then Dayna tells me that FHA isn’t going to give Rick and I a joint loan unless he can prove residency, since he works in Long Beach and comes here to Bakersfield on long weekends.  She says it’s too far a commute and the only thing we can do is get married.   She says just go down to the courthouse and get it over with.  After a lot of tears over the fact that this isn’t the way I wanted my wedding, we got a license, found someone to perform the ceremony and on July 30 we got married in a seedy little shop downtown. 


 

Meanwhile we are waiting to hear from Dayna what ELSE FHA is going to come up with.

It was recommended we keep looking at houses just in case.  We looked at a LOT of homes.  Finally I decided I was done looking.  Homes were going contingent as quick as they hit the market.  Prices were rising, homes we had looked at before were back on the market for more money, and interest rates were up.  I was tired of the games, so I stopped looking.

Oh and I forgot to mention Rick’s car getting totaled by an idiot teenager who fell asleep at the wheel and we had to find him another one and not finance very much to keep us in the LOAN ZONE.  Then there was the 2 months of trying to get a copy of Rick’s 2007 taxes because we thought they were destroyed in the car.  Then we get a copy from the IRS.  Then Rick finds his 2007 taxes in his mom’s apartment. 

The crash of the housing market opened up opportunity for people who decided to ride out the high tide of real estate speculation of the last couple years.   

I bought my first home in 1993.  At the time I was working a full time job and a part time job and my then husband had a low paying full time job.  We were told we qualified for $70,000 and we got pre-qualified for an FHA loan before we even had a chance to find the house we liked.  We had a couple glitches, we had to pay off an old dentist bill my husband never told me about and we had to pay off the small balance we had on the credit card.  Oh and there was the down payment.  We didn’t have the money for a down payment.  Nobody told us about all the first time buyers, low income help etc that we found out later was available.  We were told we had to have 3.5% plus closing costs.  We were told the money could not be a loan.  We borrowed $7000 under the table from our old landlord at 10% interest paid over 7 years.  We found a small older home in a not so great area of town.  My husband liked it because it came with a spa.  It had a big enough yard for our menagerie of dogs and an aviary to put our cockatiel and lovebirds in. I was hoping for a garage and 2 bathrooms.  Unfortunately those things didn’t fit in our price range.  We bought the home, moved in and it was happily ever after for a while.

My husband is now my ex husband.  I refinanced the house in 2002 to get my ex off the loan and to take out some money to do some improvements and repairs on the old starting to fall apart house.  I also reduced my interest rate a full point and added an extra $50 per month to the principle to help make up for the 9 years of payments lost and the extra money I took out.  I owed $72,000 on a house appraised at $84,000 and paid $64,500 for.

Now it’s 2008.  I have a new boyfriend I’ve been dating a few years.  Valentine’s day he popped the question and I accepted.  We decided on a March 2009 wedding on a beach in Hawaii.  I own a timeshare in Hawaii and with two incomes; we can afford to travel at least once a year.

Then we made the big decision.  We decided to buy another house while the market was good.  We discussed the pros and cons of getting into more debt; he is a few years from retiring from his current job and will be able to start collecting a pension, and keep working, I would like to retire before I become so old I can’t enjoy traveling. 

Our plan was simple.  Keep the old house, rent it out, and buy another, nicer house while the prices are low.  When we are ready to retire, hopefully prices will be back up, we can sell both homes, decide where we want to retire and have the equity of both homes to make a sizeable down payment on a small home or retirement condo when we are ready.  It seemed like the perfect plan.

I had heard that you can rent out the old house, and as long as you have a renter, they only count 25% of the mortgage on the old house against you.  COOL.

 I talked to the realtor; she said she knew someone else I could work with.  I talked to the recommended lender, she told me we could do an FHA loan and all she would have to do was certify that my household is increasing and I need to buy another house to accommodate it.  I told her we could include several people as possible dependents:  my stepsister in rehab, my mother, and my fiancé’s mother.  I compiled all the documents she requested; income tax returns, identification, check stubs, retirement accounts, etc. 

Then she ran our credit report. That’s when the trouble started.

Someone sent this to me and I was so amazed I had to check it out on Snopes and then I decided I needed to share it. 

try this again

This movie was the short film winner at Cannes, or so I have been told.  It doesn't matter, either way it is beautiful

I'm such a sap it made me cry.

Enjoy

M