I bet when I laid out our house and escrow timeline a couple weeks ago, those of you who have bought houses laughed and laughed. “Oh, those silly Spohrs,” you thought, “so naive to think they’ll get their house in only seventeen days! They are so precious.”
All of you homeowners were right.
Escrow has been extended for another fourteen days. Every day since I left for New York I have died 1,000 tiny deaths at the hands of stress and math. I mean seriously, why do I have to do math to buy a house? That’s just silly.
I still don’t know what escrow means, but I know that I HATE IT.
If you were keeping track of my calendar of events, I was in New York City the day escrow was supposed to close. Thinking ahead, I signed over power of attorney to Mike so he could sign all the documents to make the house legally ours. He started making jokes about having control over me a la Britney Spears’ dad over Britney. His grasp on conservatorship versus power of attorney made me temporarily question how quickly I handed over control. It turns out it didn’t matter, because escrow didn’t close. I’ve considered terminating the power of attorney but it’s been nice to have him sign things for me. “Oh Mike, you have to pay this bill because my signature means nothing.”
So what’s the hold up? Some random tax thing. Seriously, a one page form from the IRS is all our entire purchase is hinging on. And you want to know WHY we don’t have that one page form from the IRS? Because we filed our taxes by mail. When presented with the option of e-filing or sending in our tax forms the old-fashioned way, we said, “E-file? That sounds like a disease! No sir, we’ll fill out our tax forms with this here typewriter and send them off to the internal revenue service with an envelope and a stamp! E-file! Pshaw! What has technology done for anyone, it’s just a fad!”
We’re idiots.
Every day I was gone, Mike had some new doom and gloom update. Then I would have a breakdown where I made up swear words and spoke in tongues, and one of my friends would have to try to figure out what was wrong while my head spun around and I babbled incoherently. I finally told Mike to only call me if he had good news. Then my phone stopped ringing, and that made me curl up in a ball and recite the Greek alphabet backwards. It wasn’t pretty for anyone involved.
We’ve figured out a fix, and if all goes according to plan (HA), we’ll have the keys to the house in two weeks or less. But I’m not going to feel like it’s really ours until we’re in there and I’ve changed the locks. No takesie backsies!
Elle says:
I can’t wait to buy a house but at the same time, it seems like a ginormous headache. I get my info from House Hunters and I become stressed out just by watching what these people go through, especially when someone else is interested in the same house and they have to battle it out.
Plus there’s all that real estate lingo and I suck at math so I’ll have to let my husband handle it.
Shelia says:
Last year we sold and bought. NEVER again. While buying was stressful the first time (homeless w/4 kids due to late closing) it was nothing on selling. Omg a shitfest ride to hell!!!
Do yourself a favor…live in your soon to ge new house forever!!
Good luck!
Lisa says:
Home buying, I swear, is just designed to test our mental capacity for crap. It is like someone, somewhere said “let’s see just how much this person will put up with” Hopefully all goes according to plan this time and you get your house sooner rather than later.
Jenn says:
Yep….It SUCKS but once you get your home….all the bullshit will be worth it!!
Fingers crossed, chin up my beautiful friend – EVERYTHING WILL WORK OUT…HOPEFULLY SOONER THAN LATER!!!!
Until then? Well…..wine, beer and/or chocolate works well!!!
GOOD LUCK!!!!!
Lynn from For Love or Funny says:
I can’t wait to hear the good news about your new house! Best wishes!
heather says:
Crossing my fingers all goes off without another hitch! Buying a home is one of the greatest and scariest things in ‘grown up world’
Penbleth says:
The worst bit about moving house is everything, but especially the waiting to make sure everything goes through. I feel for you. I hope I don’t have to do it again for a VERY long time.
Holley says:
It is a horrible experience. I had a head to toe stress rash from May through September one year. We looked, saw our perfect home, someone else snatched it up immediately. Looked at what felt like hundreds of homes in four weeks, then after a day of looking, saw the perfect home was back on the market.
We made our offer on July 9th and closed on September 11th. In the time in between, documents were routed to the wrong department at a bank and then the bank put on unrealistic demands–it was a “short sale” which is a unique brand of stressful home buying for everyone involved.
Why did the previous deal fall through? The process took too long and the other buyers found another house.
Good luck. I hope you will be enjoying your new home soon. It will be a terrific feeling when you see Annie running joyfully through your new home.
AmazingGreis says:
Crossing my fingers the rest of the process is much easier and not as stressful!!! Good luck!
XOXO
DefendUSA says:
Heather…don’t feel bad…just try hard to roll with it. We found our first house on Memorial Day Weekend…1992. We are veterans and get to use the benefit…at the time, Title companies were emerging…they effed up our stuff so many times and computers were not really a household thing as they are now…after supplying our tax return for 2 years 4 times–I kid you not!!–we finally moved in at the end of August! It was worth it, in the end…
Hang in there!!
Angel says:
Hubby and I traveled 1500 miles, learned our escrow was delayed. We lived in a hotel for 2 weeks. The worst part was that the previous owners had already moved out of state, so the house sat there vacant while we shelled out extra money for a lousy room. We spent many hours sitting in our car, staring at the house saying, “Any day now, THIS will be all ours!” It was the oddest thing knowing it was ours, yet we didn’t have the keys. We almost bought a tent to save money, but figured that wasn’t a good way to introduce ourselves to our neighborhood. Haaa!
If I were you, I would add an extra month to your “two weeks or less” theory. That way if it happens within two weeks, cool… if not, then you won’t be as disappointed.
Momma Lioness Michele says:
Buying a house is painfully stressful. Thinking of you as you navigate through the craziness to get into your adorable home!
Becca says:
The first thing my realtor said to us when we bought our home was “Don’t fall in love with ANY house until you close on it”. I know – impossible advice, but there is just so much that can go wrong at any second. I was still nervous we were going to lose the house as we drove away from closing with the keys in hand. It’s a super stressful process. One worthy of head spinning and incoherent babbleing.
Fingers crossed for you!
jessica says:
i’m buying a house right now. i feel your pain! i have decided there’s a reason people get 30 year mortgages… it takes that long to forget the pain and be crazy enough to repeat the process.
Amie says:
I had a similar situation. I was out of town with my job (putting on a conference) and the agent & my husband were calling with updates about the demands the seller wanted. The seller?? We were in a “for sale by owner” situation & it was a nightmare. He had no clue about what to do, compromise on or give into. We should have been signing the papers, but NO!!
I feel your pain & echo the sentiments of – once you move in there, never leave! =)
Courtney says:
I was definitely one of the people that scoffed at your timeline.
Buying our house (we closed Feb 24th of this year) was more stressful than planning a wedding.
We closed on schedule only because I made it my job to hound the bank EVERY SINGLE DAY and follow up on EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF PAPER and constantly get our loan officer involved when the loan processor didn’t get things done in a timely-enough manner.
IT WAS HORRIBLE.
The day before we were to close I was RANTING on the phone to a supervisor at the bank because there was yet another snafu about whether or not we’d paid the home-owners insurance in full. Blah, blah.
It’s is hell right up to the bitter end.
And when it’s over- you’re not even happy- just relieved it’s over. It’s like surviving a plane crash. You don’t just for joy that you survived, you’re just relieved it’s over with and you made it through.
Keeping good, speedy, easy, sane thoughts for you at this wretched, wretched time.
Shannon O says:
Let Mike keep the power of attorney. Just remember to buy him a big bag of ice to soak his hand in after he’s finished signing all the papers. My husband and I have bought three houses over the years, and I was a Realtor for three years. It is a pain to sign with a power of attorney (I did it on our last house). There are TONS of pages to sign. First he will sign his name, and then he will sign your name along with a special phrase saying he is signing for you. Trust me, his hand will be cramping for a while.
Jennifer says:
This is an AWESOME post – I laughed so hard. We have bought and sold so many times, I know exactly how you feel. It is a torture game from one end to the other. But you are getting so close!! Can’t wait to see pictures of you in your new place.
Inga says:
Hi Heather! I just have to say that when I read your first post about the new house I about cried! My fiance and I were (and still are) in the process of closing on our first house and I could not believe that it was going so smoothly for you guys… and so ROCKY for us. Turns out we were just a little further into the process than you. We have been working with an excellent realtor, very patient and understanding sellers, and a wonderful bank… but somehow everything I was afraid of in the beginning has happened. I said, “What if we put in an offer and come to terms with the sellers and the house doesn’t appraise at that value?” Everyone said “It’s not likely, but could happen.” OH YEAH.. IT DID! So we had to renegotiate and I nearly lost my mind. I had also asked, “What if everything is in place and we’re ready to close and the bank backs out?” Our lender said, “Oh that is very rare, but it can happen.” Oh yeah.. it ALMOST did! I thought I was going to die. Some shit about being self-employed and the underwriters are just being overly cautious. Blah blah blah. To me it meant that my whole life course was being thrown off kilter by some asshole at the bank! Regardless, let me share the good news… WE CLOSE TOMORROW! But I keep reminding my fiance, until we change the locks, you never know what could happen.
BTW: I love your blog and I love Maddie and Annie
Michelle says:
Wow! We still rent, and after reading this and all of the comments so far I’m scared to EVER buy a house!
Lindsay C says:
Yeah sorry- I was one of the ones thinking you were silly to think it would all go smoothly. My escrow was extended FIVE TIMES. That’s 70 (SEVENTY) days for the math-impaired (and I had to just do it on a calculator, so…). Add that to the original 45-day escrow and it equals a really really really long time.
I love you, girl- this will end and you WILL have a house! Just hang tight and if you have to, get some phone numbers and raise some hell- that’s what I ended up doing and MAN, it felt good.
xoxo
Meyli says:
YIKES D: I feel so bad for you Spohr family!
As I don’t own a house (DREAMS) I can’t offer words of comfort other than soon it will be over! Then you have rein over your house because it is YOURS!
This sounds so scary and aggravating. Maybe I’ll inherit a house or something. Or just live in the woods. Squirrels are easier to bargain with.
queenfrigid says:
Buying and home can be stressful.
However, in this instance, just think of it as extra time you have to pack!
Molly says:
Wow, I missed that post and your new home is just lovely! Don’t worry–you’ll be there before you know it! We close on our new house on July 1. It’s our first time too. Should I be worried?!
Chris says:
I, too, was one of the ones envying your short escrow, we’ve bought two houses, the first one I can’t remember escrow, but the second one was also very stressful. I was pregnant and had a 2 yr. old. We sold our first to my brother, and bought on contingency of closing everything at the same time. WRONG. My brother’s loan was held up cuz his paperwork was on the bottom of the stack, the sellers of the house we were buying wanted to back out unless we came up with the down in two days!!! Yay, right like we have that kind of money just laying around. We had to borrow the down from a friend of my parents, so we wouldn’t lose the house. Very stressful, we have now been in the house for 34 yrs. Good luck, it will all be yours soon. It’s funny how no one gave their horror stories when you first mentioned you were in escrow! I think they didn’t want to scare you.
Chandra says:
We’re coming up on our 1st anniversary in our house and you are bringing back so many terrible memories of the buying process. The good news is that once you get those keys, you’ll forget everything that went wrong. Oh, but then there’s the actual moving process…a whole other kind of nightmare. I love my house and yours is truly beautiful….just promise that you’ll never move again IN LIFE and everything will be just peachy!
Megan says:
Sorry to hear about your trouble. I bought a house two years ago, and I still have yet to understand what “escrow” means. I do remember it was stressful, I didn’t trust my realtor 100 percent, and there were multiple times where I thought the closing would be delayed or just wouldn’t happen at all. One of my best friends had a worse experience…they had to move out of their rental place and RENT their new house, for a figure twice what the mortgage would be, on a weekly basis for awhile.
Hang in there. Regardless of what happens, you will close eventually and it WILL work out for the best. I didn’t get the house I considered my “dream home” because the buyer and I couldn’t agree on an offer, but looking back, I realize I’d be in a much worse position financially if that house had happened.
Rebecca says:
If you are in a position to put down 30% ??? you might not have to do escrow? You’ll not have to pay PMI either!
Joie says:
Yep…feel your pain too.
I looked at a bunch of houses before I finally picked one that was still being built. It was supposed to be done being built in like May of 05. Came and went…finally, in late July, I finally had to move out of my current house. I moved into a 1973 RV in my old neighbors front yard WITH my three dogs and five cats.
My house was SUPPOSED to be done in AT MOST 2 weeks. And that was the extended version.
44…yes, freaking 44 days later of living in that broke down motorhome, my house finally was done. Moved in that weekend.
However – I did something REALLY dumb. I bought a house that I thought was a good deal – an area I had not lived and knew nothing about, but more house for the money. I have to drive just short of an hour to get to work and it’s a 24 mile round trip JUST TO GET TO THE GROCERY STORE.
Yes, I lived in a gated community. No, it’s not worth it if it’s too far out for anyone to want to drive to come see me!
Tommie says:
Ohh, the horrors of buying a home. I bought a house last year. I found the house in April, there was a contingent offer on it. I decided it wasn’t meant to be. Kept looking. Kept seeing the realtor’s sign in the front lawn of dream home. In mid June, I emailed the reator who’d told me there was a contingent offer on dream house. He said that the deal had fallen through THAT DAY. Did I want to schedule a viewing? Ohh, hell yes, I did.
We went, we saw, we offered.
We got a counter offer.
We countered the counter.
They (the bank that owned the house) countered our countering counter. We countered again!
Two days later my realtor called and said there was another offer and it was close to asking price. But, I said, frantic, they hadn’t responded to my latest offer.
He said he’d see what he could do.
He came back two days later with an acceptance of my offer. Whew, I thought. That was close.
So inspections started. My realtor suddenly became useless. Beyond useless.
I called the bank, I scheduled inspections for pests, for septic, for anything else my bank wanted.
After closing was pushed back by a week, I arrived at closing ready to sign.
But where is your husband? The kind fellow who was taking care of closing asked.
I said, “Oh, the loan is in my name only. We don’t need him.”
Ohh, you silly woman, but we do. See, we were buying in Ohio, which is a dower state. Which, according to the closing dude, means that a married woman can’t buy a house without her husband’s permission. So I called my husband, who was an hour away and begged him to turn around and come back. He did, we signed and it was ours.
I asked my realtor (did I mention he was useless) where the keys were. He shrugged. “You know how to get in.”
The keys were still in the lock thingy in the door. He’d given us the code a month previously because my husband wanted to put a new sumpump in the basement. Sigh.
But like everyone said, the nightmare of stress was worth it. My daughters LOVE our new home, it’s close to family and work and all’s well that ends well.
Shell says:
Oh Tommie, I feel that pain. I was just about floored to learn of the Dower laws still on the books in Ohio when I bought my condo in 2001. The deed actually said, “Shell, an unmarried woman”… Truly unreal.
I read your post to my current husband and he said, “That happened in 1951, right?”
Kendra says:
I’m laughing so hard. We were in your position this exact time last year. We were supposed to close in 30 days. It took 60. What was so maddening was that after we jumped through hoop after hoop, the lender wanted us to jump through more hoops. I still can’t figure out why they couldn’t have asked us for ALL the documentation they required right up front. Seriously! Just when we thought we had given the lender everything they wanted and we were days away from closing, they asked for yet more stuff, which kept delaying the closing.
I was actually driving to Palm Desert for a much needed weekend to de-stress with some friends when the lender called me while I was driving to Palm Desert to tell me that we needed to get one of our vehicles paid off to qualify for the loan? Really?! You didn’t know this four weeks ago??? So as I was driving to the desert, I was trying to get my car paid off. But we finally closed, I didn’t have a stroke, and I lost ten pounds in the process. The stress and the headaches – and especially the weight loss – were totally worth it.
When you get word that your loan has funded, you can consider the place yours. Your loan will fund and the following business day the deed will record. Once the deed records, the place really is yours. Our loan funded on a Friday, which meant the deed wouldn’t record until Monday. So yeah, add two more days to the wait. But that didn’t stop us from going over to the new house on Friday to do some yard work and introduce ourselves to our neighbors.
Amy K says:
Sorry your experience is so stressful! My husband and I bought our first house back in 2003, and everything was stalled because at some point during the process the bank discovered that I had a collection agency after me. Huh? I called this mysterious collection agency to find out what was going on, and it turned out that apparently the insurance company I used in college had neglected to pay a bill for a hospital visit during the last few months of my senior year, and all of the notices had been sent to my student address after graduation and never forwarded to me by the college. So then I had to convince my former insurance company to pay the bill, and get proof from the hospital that the bill had been paid and the collection agency was no longer chasing me. They were all so eager to help me out and expedite the paperwork, let me tell you. Mmm hmm. And as the icing on the cake, our loan officer went on vacation in the middle of this and his assistant barely spoke English, so every conversation about escrow was even more confusing than usual. Good times. It all worked out in the end, though, just like it will for you. Playing with Annie in your new house will make it all worthwhile!
Kristin (MamaKK922) says:
Good Luck! I will keep everything crossed that you’ll have those keys soon. And like everyone has said it will all be worth it when all is said and done.
Amy says:
I think I am experiencing homebuyers’ angst on your behalf because last night I dreamt that Graham was trying to sell our house out from under me.
Also, we don’t deal with this concept of “escrow” in Canada and I’m never entirely sure what it means. Now I know it means STRESS.
Thinking positive house thoughts for you guys!
Txtingmrdarcy says:
Just breathe… and chocolate… and breathe some more. You WILL get through it. We did it last year (the ‘one document’ they demanded? his DIVORCE papers. If THAT’s not invasive…) and when you finally get those keys, it’s all worth it.
Sending good vibes your way.
jewl says:
sorry, I was one of those laughing at your positivity the last post. Just wait, you’ll be on your way to sign docs and they will need some last minute crap. It gets better and better. Until you have the keys in your hand don’t even get excited! Sorry, its just a terrible process. They made us do a budget, seriously, a budget WHILE at closing and it had to be signed. We had to PROVE where every penny was going. My husband would say, can I buy lunch today or does the mortgage company want me to starve? And it was not a joke. After we closed we bought a car and laughed all the way home at how we had just messed up their budget goodtimes. Take care!
Lisa says:
Buying a house is the most amazingly wonderful and completely disastrous thing most people do in their life times. IT SUCKS! And the realtors, mortgage brokers, banks and title companies are CROOKS! And dont even get me started on real estate attorneys….. Don’t cry anymore, I cried about 10 times when I got my first place- a condo. About 7-10 times when I purchased my townhome (which is now less than half of what I paid for the damn thing) and approx 5-10 times for the house we bought a few months ago. Now trying to dump the under water TH off a cliff and actually cried about it today. So it sucks to buy, sucks to un- buy too!! Good luck. Cant wait to see the pics of you in your new home in 2 weeks or less!!!! Lisa
Elizabeth says:
When my parents were in the process of buying this house it was help up because my mom owed a bill from like 15 years ago, it was crazy. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for you and hope all goes as planned.
Melanie B says:
Ha ha…It took us 8 MONTHS to close on our house. It was one thing after another. And yes, it was HELL. Feeling for you guys since I know how much it sucks.
amourningmom says:
How nerve wracking! Good luck – hope the fix works and you are moving in asap. Take care.
Tracy Lang says:
Just closed escrow today on the sale of my sweet Mom’s house (she passed a little over a year ago)…it took forever to close! We all really got screwed by the “mortgage meltdown”. Anyway, the final days are seemingly endless and excruciating…as long as you have a good lender who is ready to fund and the title to the property is clear it’s just the banks talking to the escrow company…so frustrating!!!
Hope it’s a done deal for you soon…i’ve followed your blog for a long time and am sending ton’s of good vibes. You will be in that cute house very soon!!!
Jana Frerichs says:
Reading this gave me flashbacks to our homebuying experience. (Shiver) I didn’t sleep the entire 2 months we were in the process. The very last thing that held us up was our landlords marriage license! When we first signed our lease on our rental house our landlord was a carefree single gal, when we bought our house and had to give the information on our rental history, she had gotten married. The mortgagee company SERIOUSLY needed a copy of her marriage license before we could proceed. I’m quite sure this gave me diarrhea. I didn’t get a hold of the landlord until 9 pm and she said she would fax it to me, so I headed to work and had her fax it immediately there. It was one of the most stressful times of my life! About a year later I had a friend who was planning a wedding and buying a house at the same time. I told her she was nuts. She did it, but I’m pretty sure she’ll never be the same. LOL
MJ says:
UGH. I totally know what you mean. I cannot even believe how many hoops we’ve had to jump through, to the point I’m wondering if there’s any such thing as common sense anymore, and where the crap do they keep those things called “underwriters”. Are they in a dungeon, never allowed to see the light of day? Because I have a hard time imagining an underwriter going home to their spouse and children, going shopping for groceries, changing the oil in their car… Yeah.
I think they push you to your breaking point. I’ve discussed just telling them all to bite it, but my husband says once we have the house, we’ll be fine. We won’t have to deal with this again for a LOOOONG time. So I just bite my tongue and keep my eye on the prize.
We can do it!!!!!
Kadee says:
I bought my first house when I was 22. For the most part, I tripped along woefully (and happily) unaware of the major stress I was in. My realtor helped enormously, the mortgage lady at the bank had worked with my family for over 20 years and was absolutely wonderful and my parents had great advice. The only time I felt panic was when the home inspector found a slight issue with the roof and when all the hard-earned money I had saved for 18 months left my account for the down payment. Start to finish, it took 60 days as planned and I had my keys.
A few years later I sold that house to my brother and moved to another province for work. I was expecting my second home buying experience to go as well as the first. Hardy har har.
Things went bad right from the beginning. I wasn’t able to negotiate the sale price of the house and had to pay full price or face a bidding war. The sale of the house to my brother depended on the sale of HIS house, which thankfully sold in only 6 days. But the bank kept losing the mortgage applications, both his and mine! Moving across the border into another province with different housing rules threw wrenches into the mix at every turn. First they wanted 25% down, and I said fine. Then they called back and said actually, they need 30% down for me to be approved. I told them to just take it out of the account. Sheesh.
I was in the throes of a separation and everyone wanted copies of the separation agreement, and later, the divorce papers. Every time the phone rang it was the bank needing yet another piece of paper proving something else. It was getting ridiculous. My brother and I phoned the bank every single day during the last month and nagged them until progress was made.
I again had 60 days to close and issue after issue crept up until the very last possible minute. I needed proof of residency before they could start sending utility bills, and I needed proof of utility accounts to finalize the mortgage – funny thing is, I DON’T ACTUALLY LIVE THERE YET. I had until 9pm to close on that 60th day and everything was FINALLY resolved at 8:50pm that final night. I was a mess! My brother was already living in my old house, I was at my new job and I wasn’t going to have a place to live if things hadn’t gone through.
There was a housing crunch here at the time – meaning there were too many buyers and not enough houses – and if I lost the house, there would be a long wait until I could get into another one (there was no place to rent either, everything was full). As it was, this house was the only actual house on the market in my price range at the time – the rest were townhouses and duplexes.
Stress, stress, stress! I didn’t believe the house was mine until I was standing in the entryway with that key in my hand. Even then, I worried that the mortgage lady would drop by to inform me that wait, she needed yet more papers.
That was five years ago. They say the rules have only gotten more stringent since then. Hoo boy, I’m not sure I could go through all that again.
Liz says:
Um – Yeah. My husband and I just bought our first house earlier this year and it was a nightmare. We went under contract on January 27 and were supposed to close at the end of February… but that didn’t actually happen until April 12. It was awful. It was made worse by the fact that we were renting and had to be out of our apartment by March 1. So, we either had to live in a hotel for a month (with our 3 yr old!), or stay in my parents vacant, for-sale, house an hour away from my husbands office. We stayed in my parents house which had now gone from for sale to under contract and finally closed on our house two days before my parents house closed. Talk about last minute. Stressed? I was WAY beyond that.
Ray says:
W0w. Hope everything goes as planned!!!!