When you don’t have money things just spiral out of control. And by “money” I mean “Money”. I HAVE “money”. Day-to-day, Hell, I’ve got enough that I’m tempted regularly by moderately high-ticket items and have bought more than a few things that I simply never use and should figure out how to sell again. But CAPITAL “M” “Money” is beyond me, and so there come regular threats to the order of my existence in the form of “what if the car fails” and “so, we’re gonna sell your house”. I don’t have enough Money to make any possible indictments look like a casual walk down to the courthouse where I just happen to get ink on my fingers for covering up my affair with a pornstar.
Don’t have the Money to have an affair with a pornstar.
Neither here nor there.
As you ALL know by now, the landlord selling the house has resulted in us trying to BUY the house. And though we technically don’t have the Money, lenders don’t care about that, they care that you can regularly MAKE money as an ongoing rollout of cash is FAR more lucrative to them than any lump sum. As the math for everything comes together it’s simply offensive how interest is front-loaded, and it’s simply SO complicated that it requires an entire ecosystem of people with myriad jobs all integrated and working closely together simply to transform me from a debt-free renter into an endebted … an endebted WHAT? I won’t “own” the house. The BANK will own the house…. I know everyone will CALL me a “homeowner” but that seems something of a myth.
IF we get there.
At the moment we’re in this horrible grey area that seems every bit as uncertain as we were before. All advice pointed to NOT going directly to a bank, and instead going through a mortgage broker, which – SEEMS to have been good advice. My band, NASA FCU, for all that I’ve been with them literally my entire Life – and the guy I call to get advice from is the same guy I called when I graduated from college – for all that continuity, they didn’t QUITE laugh at me when I first approached them about a home loan last year but haven’t bothered returning my calls when we re-approached them THIS year.
And so we had two mortgage brokers both not-quite-fighting-it’s-no-big-deal-who-you-go-with-but-here’s-why-I’m-better-than-the-other-guying us for several days before we chose one and moved along.
And suddenly we have a “team” and lots of paperwork to sign and we’re being moved along with lots of very friendly people who’re all on a tight schedule and are happy to explain things to us if we don’t understand them but c’mon we’re kind of on the clock here…
Contract that to the actual LENDER who has only JUST gotten involved, and reset my expectations to remember that the other guy, well… he just connected us with someone… now someone ELSE is ACTUALLY going to make the decision and maybe they won’t give us a mortgage AFTERALL. And the HVAC guy is MIA (last heard from, sick and in bed) and the insurance guy isn’t returning our calls (this is the last thing on our list from the broker and after today’s appraisal, is the last thing WE seem to have control over)…
And all of this would go away if I had Money.
I HAVE money. Enough for some retail therapy which I really should NOT engage in. Enough to contemplate some “real” renovations once we pseudo-own the house. But I don’t have Money. And for that I’ll continue to feel the stress of uncertainty and a Life of people who don’t return my fucking calls.
Sounds all too familiar?