Somewhere there is a fat lady singing

They say it isn't over until the fat lady sings....well I hope that somewhere out there, there is a fat lady singing in the celebration of the completion of our refinance.

When we bought our house a couple of years ago, we opted for a 30 year fixed loan. Unfortunately the rates weren't so hot when we closed on the house and we were above 7%. We planned to wait at least a year, reasses things, and then consider refinancing at a better rate. This past April we got our tax bill and realized that it had more than doubled. Not only would there not be enough money in escrow to pay these taxes but our payment was going to take a major hike north. After meeting with our financial advisor we learned that rates were lower and that by refinancing we could keep our payment about the same but allow for more money to go into escrow to pay taxes.

We met with the loan officer that our financial advisor recommended and we were told that this would be a quick and easy refinance. The only obstacle would be in getting our house to appraise high enough since the market had pretty much taken a dump. We had an appraiser over and to our surprise the house appraised for more than we had hoped. It seemed that all systems were a go and we would be done with the refinance before mid-May. We didn't want to pull out any equity or do anything else. All we wanted to do was to get a fixed rate loan at a lower rate. With rates at 6% we were happy to learn that our payment would even drop a little bit while still including the necessary increase in taxes.

We began this process April 24th (3 months ago!) and let's just say that it wasn't all that cut and dry. To begin with, my self-employment became a major issue. Although I am still doing the same thing I have been doing since 2003, I no longer have a guaranteed paycheck. Therefore, the underwriter would not consider my income in determining whether or not we could get the loan. This was unsettling as we were now looking for the same loan on half the income. I can understand not counting the income of a self-employed person in such a bad economy. However, although they were not counting my income for us, they counted my debt against us. Even though they weren't counting my income, I was required to provide my business financial statements and bank account information. To make matters worse, my husband is an hourly paid employee who nearly doubles his regular earnings with overtime and bonuses. Of course the underwriter did not want to count this money as earnings either.

I have to say that if I knew then what I know now, I would have refinanced in December before I quit my job to start my own business - we could have avoided all of this! We went through months of unsettling absurdity. They didn't verify my husband's employment once - no they verified it about 6 or 7 times! He is a union employee who has been with the same company since 1999. Was it really necessary to reverify his employment every week?

Our loan officer told us that if we couldn't get this loan completed that he would be looking for a new job because if we couldn't get financed he doubted anyone could. He guaranteed us the loan would be done before June 1. That didn't happen. He then guaranteed us it would be done before June 15 and then before June 30. None of these things happened. The underwriter was incredibly slow in getting back to us and for nearly 3 weeks straight there was no communication between the underwriter, account executive and loan officer. It was the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen.

We finally went to the closing on July 15th. We thought we were done...isn't that why they call is a "closing"? Well - we were not done. We closed on Tuesday and then on Wednesday found out that the underwriter was demanding that my name be taken off of the deed, title, note, and mortgage since I am self-employed. I was not happy with this, but after 90 days of himming and hawwing around I just agreed to do it to be done with it and planned to do a quit claim to put my name back on later. On Friday, July 19, we met with the loan officer to sign more papers to take my name off of everything. Now we thought we were really done... WRONG AGAIN!

On Monday morning, I received a call from the loan processor. She tells me that the account executive has called to let her know that the underwriter has changed her mind and that now we need to sign even more papers in order to keep my name on everything. While I was pleased with this change, I couldn't believe it was happening so last minute - especially after everyone scrambled to get papers signed on Friday afternoon - all for nothing.

Monday afternoon the title company was to receive a wire in order to pay off our original mortgage. We got another call that they needed to re-verify my husband's employment one last time before they would wire the money! This was done and finally on Tuesday, July 22nd it was a done deal.

This has been the longest most nerve-wracking experience of my life! I have heard from other friends and people in the lending business that it is like this everywhere. Basically it didn't have anything to do with us in particular - that it is more of a problem with the economy. Throughout this process there were lenders that were taken over by the FDIC, others that halted trading, and many that are sinking because they lent money to people who couldn't afford to pay their bills and are now in foreclosure. I was even told by one person that you could miss your mortgage payment for 13 months before they could catch up with you because there are so many people heading into foreclosure right now.

We are thankful and grateful that it is finally over. Having bought other houses in the past, on our own and together, we never expected this process to take so much time. I literally spent at least 20 hours of my own time in scanning, emailing, and faxing documents over to the laon officer, answering questions, filling out forms, getting contact information for them to verify employment, etc.

In the end there were several other small hangups that we were not happy with either. Because so much time went by since we started the process to when we finished, our rate went from 6% to 6.375%, the underwriter also required that we pay off an auto loan at the very last minute.

I have to say that I am relieved to be done with it all. I can't begin to describe the frustration and anger that this process caused. One thing is for sure - we will NOT be moving anytime soon!