This is a story about the heart-pounding rollercoaster ride of buying a house and how I saw the proof that God really does love me.
Some of you, especially newer ones, probably don't know that when I left the organization in 1987, I left still believing that the organization was the true religion, which meant, since I couldn't stay in it and keep my sanity, that Jehovah didn't want me. After 12 years of trying as sincerely as is possible to get his help with what was wrong, I gave up and quit, and literally prayed to Jehovah saying, "It's obvious that you don't intend to help me; therefore I can only assume you don't want me. Fine; have it your way. You leave me alone, and I'll leave you alone."
Then I proceeded to become a raging alcoholic. This stretched out over about eight years, culminating in a 70-MPH head-on car collision that put both me and the other driver in the hospital. Although the other driver had also been drinking, it was determined that I was the one at fault, and I was charged with Intoxication Assault (a felony). I was given the option of 5 years hard time, or 10 years probation with a six month stay at an live-in rehab center. I chose probation. In the rehab center, I decided that I should have been dead already, and that this was my last chance reprieve. So I paid attention in the classes and took an active part, and applied the training in my life. In June, 1995 when they released me, my total possessions amounted to a few articles of clothing, some boxes of books, family photos and letters, and a car that was 430 miles away in Houston with two flat tires and an expired inspection sticker. I moved into a place called "Power House" which was a democratically run boarding house for people in recovery from substance abuse, and began the slow process of rebuilding my life from scratch.
----- (Cut to the present) -----
About two months ago, my girlfriend and I were talking about the state of my credit and I said that I didn't know exactly what it looked like, but I knew there were some old debts still left on there to pay off. She told me that her daughter was a lawyer and her son-in-law a mortgage broker, and that they would be glad to run a credit report for me if I wanted to know, so I said sure, let's see what it looks like. Christina and Eric ran the report and faxed it to us, then called to explain what was on it. My credit rating was 625. I had no idea what that meant. Chris went into a long explanation and finally said, "well, here, let me put Eric on. He can sum it up for you." So Eric got on the phone and said, "basically, it means you're good for a mortgage loan up to about $190,000."
"But I don't have enough saved up to make a down payment yet," I said.
"You don't want to do that anyway," he replied. "You want to get an FHA loan that wraps the down payment up in the loan. Then you can take your $8000, or whatever you would have paid down, and invest it in some high-interest-yielding bonds, or whatever. In eight years you'll have made back the few dollars difference in your payments."
The next thing you know, I'm looking at houses. My girlfriend Debra works for a realtor and appraiser, and is about to get her appraisal license; she's been in real estate for years and knows the business in and out. She went with me to look and helped me by explaining some of the workings of the system. After three weekends of looking at houses, we found one that was perfect. Out in the country surrounded by meadows and woods, but just a 30-minute commute to work (I presently drive a 30-minute commute), the house is attractive brick, a roomy 3-2-3 (yep, I said a 3-car garage) with fireplace and lots of fancy extras, like tasteful hardwood kitchen cabinets rather than particle-board and veneer, molding around the ceilings, specially designed hardwood ceiling in the dining room, and covered patio. The roof is brand new (three months old). The half-acre yard has a sprinkler system. The foundation is in perfect condition. The asking price was $125,000. Friends, I looked at houses priced at $150,000 and $160,000 that were trash. It was a steal at that price. Seems the owners wanted to close on a new home they were buying, and were eager to sell.
So, back to Eric... the FHA loan would run $135,000 with down payment and closing costs figured in, at an interest rate of 6.75%. But the next week a problem arose: the house wouldn't appraise for $135,000, meaning we couldn't do an FHA loan. Eric told me I'd have to come up with some money down after all. And the current interest rate has gone up to 7% now. So we made another offer, dropping the house price and stipulating that the owner should pay all closing costs, and I got busy tracking down an old 401K from previous employment that I hadn't heard from for 1 1/2 years. I found it (the former employer had switched companies and didn't give the new ones my Dallas address) and told them I wanted to cash it in. In the interim since my last statement, my 401K had "increased" in value from $6500 to $5600. Hmmm... well, riskiest stocks were doing really well, back when I set it up... :-/
So they mailed me some papers ("We're not equipped for fax," this financial institution told me) and I filled them out and sent them to the former employer and they signed them and sent them back to the bank and the bank tied a check with my name on it onto the back of a turtle and released it into the US Mail system.
Meanwhile, Eric notified me that I needed more stuff in my credit report. I needed to get hold of three credit reports from creditors that showed a year of payments with nothing late. Easy money, right? Well, I called TXU gas, and TXU electric, and they sent credit reports. Hmmm... I got behind at Christmas time on the electric... oops. Gas looked good all the way thru... 11 months. Oops. I moved into this rent house and turned on the utilities in my name in July of last year. At the apartment before this, they were in my former live-in lover's name. Thud. I didn't yet have any utilities in my name for a complete year.
So, I waited a couple of days and the new bill for gas was posted online. I hurriedly paid it, then called them again and asked for another credit report. They sent one, but it still showed 11 months. So I called them back and the lady explained that it didn't matter how many payments I'd made, I'd had service for 11 months and that was what the report was going to show.
So I called the phone company... oops, I kinda let that one slide a little at Christmas, too. Who else, who else? Called the water company... nope, they were showing 11 months of service, too.
Well, I called my landlord and explained the situation, and he was very cooperative; he wrote me a shining credit report, stating that I'd not only paid ontime, but sometimes ahead of time. He commented, "Mortgage companies love to hear good rent payment reports."
And I called my car insurance company, and the lady said they could send a statement showing that I had had continuous insurance coverage since March of 2001. "Can you make it state that I was never late on a payment?" I asked.
"Well, see," she explained, "if you'd been late, then your insurance would have been cancelled. So when they read that it was continuous, they'll know that you paid it on time."
"I don't think..." I tried, but it was no use, they wouldn't budge.
"I don't know if the morgage company will take it like this," Eric said. "We'll just have to see."
So they wanted four favorable credit reports over a year's time, and all we had was three (my Visa card was already there), and one of those questionable. Eric says, "We'll just have to go with this and hope they'll take it."
Meanwhile, where's the check for the 401k? The owners want to close on May 31st. Tick, tick, tick... it's May 29th, and the check's not here. I've got to come up with $3800 to cover the down payment, and I've got $2500. And my June rent for the rent house has to come out of that.
Debra calls me up. "Did the check come yet?"
"Nope."
"Okay, here's what we're going to do. I'm going to give you a gift of $1450. Combined with your $2500, it'll cover what you have to have at closing and still leave you enough to survive for a week til your next paycheck."
"Hon, I can't let you do that."
"If we don't do this, you'll have to put off the closing on the house. You'll pay it back to me immediately upon receipt of the check for the 401k. Immediately, understand?"
"Okay," I say. "Can we jack it up enough to include the June rent? My landlord gave me this glowing letter of praise and if I use my $2500 for the down payment, it'll make me late on the rent."
"Nope," she said. So, waddia gonna do? (shrug)
Eric calls. "When you buy a house, you have to prove that you aren't buying it with drug money. Basically, I need proof that you already had your down payment before this time."
"If I had it in the bank before closing time, it's not drug money?"
"That's the way they figure it. Anyway, fax me a copy of your last bank statement showing that you had $2500 in there." So I take off work and go home... there's no May bank statement. What on earth? I'm scratching my head... what would I have done with it? Then I look at the statements for April, March and February... they're all dated the 28th. Omigod, they send them out on the 28th. Would it... could it possibly come in the mail today? So I stay home from work and wait for the mail to come. Sure enough, the solitary envelope in the box is my May bank statement, showing a balance of $2640. Woohoo! Back to work; fax it to Eric.
Eric calls me at work on the 30th... "There's an unpaid medical debt on your credit, $494. They want you to pay it before they give you the loan."
"If I pay it, it'll be out of the down payment money."
"Can you dispute it? What is it?"
"It's where they screwed up and didn't send the bill to the insurance, or the insurance denied it, or something like that, I don't know. I had a copay, and I always paid that at the time of the visit. That's all I was liable for."
"Well, you need to dispute it, then. Write, sign and fax me a letter stating that you learned about this debt when you ran a credit report to buy a house, and that you'll be in touch with the insurance company to straighten it out." So I did up the letter and faxed it to him.
Eric calls again, still on the 30th. "They're asking about a lapse in employment for a few months in 2000."
"Yeah," I say, "that's when I moved to Dallas. Before I started looking for work, I took two months off to study and bone up on COM+ technology. Then I looked for work for a month before I got on here."
"Did you get certified?"
"No. Well, I mean, I did get a certification about that time, but it wasn't related to my studies..."
"Microsoft?"
"No..."
"What was it?"
"Brainbench. One of the headhunters I talked to asked me to get it."
"Brainbench... um... just say you got certified, don't give a name. Write me a letter explaining that you took time off to study an advanced class for certification, which you received; and after that you secured employment at your current location." So I wrote the letter and faxed it to him.
Eric calls again. "We have a form here stating that Debra gave you a free gift in the amount of $1450. I'm going to fax it to you, and you have to sign it and fax it back to me. It's proof that the $1450 is not drug money." Fax, sign, fax.
Thursday evening, May 30th, Debra flies to New Orleans on a business trip.
Friday afternoon, 2:30 PM. I have to be at the title company's office at 3:00 PM sharp. If I'm as much as 10 minutes late, they'll move on to other business and we'll have to reschedule the closing. I'm stuck in traffic where construction has shrunk the freeway from four lanes to two.
At straight up 3:00 PM I get to the other side of the construction. Can I get from here to the title company in 10 minutes? I go zipping through the sluggish but slowly expanding traffic like Spiderman dodging slow-motion Green Goblin knives. I arrive at the title company... am I too late?
"Autumn was scheduled to handle your closing," says the lady at the desk, "but she went home sick earlier today. Lee's going to handle it for you, but she's with someone else right now. Do you mind waiting?"
Who... me? :)
So after half an hour, Lee takes me into her office and I sign and initial forty bazillion pieces of paper. Lee answers the phone, talks into it for a while, and then says to me, "We're having to redo some of the paperwork. They found that you weren't paying your required 3% as it was calculated. So it looks like you'll be paying some of the closing costs after all. It's going up... let's see... you were going to be paying $631, but now it'll be roughly double that amount."
This takes a moment to sink in.
"Did you say... I was to pay...$631?" I ask.
"Yes, but we've got to add some more in. It's a government requirement that you pay 3%."
"Lee... I came prepared to pay $3800." She looked at me an smiled. Then she continued reading and explaining things to me. "The interest rate on this loan is 6.75%," she said.
So when it came down to the money, I gave her two cashiers checks made out to the title company; one for $1450 and one for $2500, and she ran one off made out to me in the amount of roughly $2600 to make up the difference.
"And that's it?" I said.
"That's it," she said. "Congratulations."
I left and went to my bank, where I deposited the cashier's check. On the way home, I stopped at my landlord's house and paid the June rent, one day ahead of time. I pulled into my garage, ducked under the closing door, and checked my mail. In the box was the 401k check... $4400 (after they took 20% out for taxes). I drove back to the bank and put that one in, too. It'll come in handy when it's time to move, and time to get a riding mower for that big yard.
Friends, I am now the owner of a beautiful, spacious home on a large lot in the scenic, peaceful countryside south of Dallas. In 1995, seven years ago, I was the owner of some clothes and books and a junk car.
"The blessing of Jehovah--that is what makes rich, and he adds no pain with it."
Proverbs 10:22
Look at all the stuff that came together, most of it at the last second, to enable me to get this house. Who can deny the hand of Jehovah in the matter? He is expressing his approval of me at last.
Obviously, my agnostic stance has moved him to show such an outpouring of blessing and approval. Reckon I better keep it.
COMF
"Can you believe there are still people suckering for this shit? Hehehe!"
- J.R. Brown