We Gain a House, But Lose Some Sanity

Look at the photo below and answer the following multiple-choice question.  Does this photo represent:

A) I’ve finally learned how to use the “super macro” function on my camera
B) I have keys that are both purple AND sparkly
C) WE BOUGHT A NEW HOUSE
D) All of the above

Obviously, the answer is D. Which is why my blog has been suspiciously silent for the past week. If anyone has ever told you that buying a house is “fun”… watch out. THEY LIE. Oh, sure, looking at houses is fun. It’s the actual contract, negotiations, and loan part that sucks monkey butt.

Here’s what HGTV would have you think about home buying (with my personal edits).

John and Jane Doe acquire a realtor to help them search for a house.
Okay, this much is true.

After 15 minutes, 3 houses, and 2 clothing changes, they find a house they like. What they don’t show is the 1.35 bajillion other houses the picky couple drags their hapless realtor to. But in our case, it was just one house. We saw it, we liked it, we wanted to buy it.

The couple puts in an offer on the house they like. They sit down at a pretty garden table with a scenic vista to sign their offer letter. We quickly scribble our signature about a dozen times and our realtor says, “thanks, I’ll call you.”

The couple waits in a fancy local coffee shop for their realtor to come back with the buyer’s response. We wait about two months for the buyer’s response. And we are not hanging out in a coffee shop.

Eventually, the offer is accepted. The couple jumps up and down and cheers and hugs each other. We sigh in relief because we think the hard part is over. HAHA jokes on us. We still need to finalize the loan…

The couple goes straight to title. Getting a loan is neither simple nor easy. You never see that part on the TV shows. For our loan I was on a first-name basis with half of the staff at the loan agency, bounced back and forth emails and phone calls at all hours of the day, and may have found my first gray hair.

The couple goes to the title company, sits at a large wooden table with half a dozen people, and signs a paper with a flourish. We go to the title company, sit at a small desk in a small office and start signing all twenty thousand and one pages of the necessary paperwork. Halfway through, the title officer pokes her head in and says, “um, we have a slight hiccup…”

The couple then hand over a check, and are then presented with a set of keys and told, “Congratulations, you just bought a house!”

YOU DON’T GET THE KEYS WHEN YOU SIGN AT TITLE. THAT IS A BIG FAT LIE. You get the keys later that day, or the next day, once the sale has recorded.  SO anti-climatic.

The couple instantly walks into their new house where they find a beautiful housewarming gift from their new friends at HGTV. We walk into our new house much later in the afternoon only to find out the utility companies have been by to turn off our electricity and water. Also, oddly enough, HGTV did not leave us a housewarming gift.

But it’s done now, and we have a beautiful house!