Where We Stand

When at first you don't succeed, pray a lot, and then try, try again.

We spent the weekend accepting what didn't go right with Friday's missed house closing and what, if anything, we could do on Monday to continue with the purchase of our home.

Our best bet was to abandon our loan with our current lender since it would be impossible to get the documents they needed without an 8-12 week delay. Since the hang-up was not a credit issue, we'd instead start a new, expedited loan with a new company in the hopes that the seller would agree to an extension.

On Monday morning we sat down with a new lending company and were assured that we would not encounter the same roadblock as the last lender and that we could get a closing in 2 weeks. We provided all our information for our pre-approval, and we received our pre-approval letter by that evening.

On Tuesday we submitted an amended contract to the seller (who is actually a relocation company) for a new closing date of on or before July 12th and waited all day for a response. The waiting is the hardest part, especially since we are doing everything we can quickly to get this resolved.

Today they had a counter offer that they'd agree to the new closing date with a little more earnest money. So once again we had to sign another amended contract and wait for them to do the final sign-off before we could initiate the loan and get the ball rolling.

Finally, today, we had the new signed contract in hand and were able to get the closing process re-started and order the appraisal!

The worst part of the whole experience is the lost confidence. We were burned the first time so we are very gun-shy on this second go-round. There's not as much security in "pre-approval" as we once believed. While we are cautiously optimistic, we won't have any true relief until the underwriting is complete and we know for sure that the sale will go through.

At least we're still in the game.

Two weeks. It's really not a long time. We can wait two more weeks.

Unfortunately our current landlords cannot. The absolute latest we can stay at our rental (due to new tenants moving in) is next Thursday, July 5th. Needless to say we are looking at all our options for loading and storing our belongings for the week until we can get in the house. {At this point, we're hardly blinking at this setback!}

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Thank you all for your texts, calls and prayers! It's been an exhausting week filled with so many different emotions. With the encouragement and guidance from some special people, we reached a point of perspective and acceptance and realized that in the grand scheme of things, this is not nearly as terrible as other hardships we could face in life. It's just a house, a beautiful one, yes, but just a house nonetheless.

We are so thankful for the answered prayer of more time. We'll continue to pray that the rest of the closing goes swiftly and easily. Thanks for praying along.