Lessons on Buying a House: The Big Day–It’s Mine!

The funny thing is last night I slept better than I have in a long time.  I’m not sure why exactly; I guess I expected that it would all work out OK.  Yesterday, I had the final walk-through with my agent, and I thought that I would have the closing papers in my hand, or at least in an email attachment, and also the actual amount that I would have to take to closing.  That was what I had been told by the title company.

However, the flurries of activity by my agent, their agent, the lender, the people from HUD approving all my paperwork, and the title company all seemed to continue–or maybe not.  I don’t really know.  I felt like I was in the dark.  I waited patiently–I’ve been a patient waiter in all of this, having done what I could do myself, letting all those other people, do their jobs.  Then about two hours before the supposed closing time, with still no word from any of them, I made one call to my agent, and within about 20 minutes I had a call from the lender with the amount of the check I had to take for my closing costs.  But just to show how loose ends everything was at that point, during our phone call the amount changed.

I hurried from work, went and got my cashier’s check, and headed to the title company.  The seller’s agent was there, as was my agent.  The sellers weren’t, because they now live overseas, which just led to more complications because another agent was there who had Power of Attorney for the sellers, or shall we say, got Power of Attorney via long distance to the title company officer.

There were several other loose ends to be tied up, a lot of signing to be done mostly by me, but also by the sellers’ agent and the agent with Power of Attorney.

Then the signed papers had to be faxed or emailed (I didn’t see that) back to my lender’s office for approval, and, of course, some of the paperwork had to be redone.

It was almost a 3-hour session, but I totally enjoyed the experience, the culmination of all the driving to look at neighborhoods, all the worry about whether I would get the loan, all the weirdness of looking at houses filled with the stuff of people I didn’t know.

Though I’m back in my snug apartment tonight, with a cold rain blowing from the north outside, I’m happy with myself for having pushed myself to get my own house.  It’s going to be a big change, but I like the house a lot and I know that I’ve moved myself into another stage of my life, not something that I had to do, but something that I needed to do.