THE MORTGAGE PROCESS, or HOW TO PROMISE TO SPEND $300,000 OVER 30 YEARS WHEN YOU CAN'T PAY $100,000 ALL AT ONCE.
     The closing date is set for June 21 (not the specific time), as the mortgage paperwork has finally cleared the last bureaucratic hurdle.  Compared to the stories of masochistic horrors that family have described their own experiences, this has been a relatively painless process.  Kind of like a prostate exam given by someone with small hands; still feels like being left wide open and vulnerable, but knowing that it could be worse.

     Back in the bad old days, before the mortgage meltdown of the early 21st Century when everyone was buying houses because "everyone else are buying houses", the mortgage process seemed to be much easier:

broker: "Here, hold this under your nose."
borrower: "What is it?"
broker: "A mirror, see if you can make it fog up.  Give me your left hand."
borrower: "What for?"
broker: "Just checking for a pulse.  Aaaaannnnd, were done!  Will that be $250K, or the half million?"

     Thus, the creation of the "liar loan".  Borrower lies to the lenderabout his income, lendor lies to the mortgage company about the ability of the borrower to pay, the appraiser lies about the true value of the property (based on the value of other nearby liar loan transactions), mortgage companies and banks lie to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and overnment examiners about their loan portfolios, Fannie and Freddie split up the loans, break them up and rebundle them like a bad panel of waferboard, and lie about how wonderful an investment the loan business is.  And sooner or later, someone is foreclosing on those left holding the bag.  Like Iceland.

     But now their is more scrutiny, for fear that this will be THE one loan that will send the world's economy back into the Bronze Age.  But thanks to politicians that get their knowledge of banking and the economy from their friends and contributors (Dodd-Frank), the mortgage process is now more like a cavity search, without the Miranda warning.  And with a down payment.  Our process, however, came with painkillers. 

     First, we greatly benefited from a friend in the business, someone who is involved in writing mortgages and able to get ideas, like the most important: pre-approval.  Gets some of the hard stuff out of the way, sets the pattern of the paperwork tsunami that is about to begin, and gives an idea of what we could afford, with two months of bank statements and pay stubs.  And then knowing that what we could afford, we could not afford, and scaling down to something more reasonable.  Next step, find the house.  But I've already covered that process. 

     Once the offer was accepted, then the paperwork began.  The two months of bank statements and pay stubs?  Need them again.  Any non-usual deposits?  Better be ready to explain where they came from.  I had sold a few things, collected the money using Square.  Time for a short-answer essay why the money was collected, and how this is not a usual occurance.  I have a freind getting a much larger mortgage, that was advised not to deposit money, lest he have to get five statements explaining the source of the funds. 

     The mortgage application itself was a 39 page of redundancy, and federally-mandated warnings and advisories.  Nice to know that the law prohibits mortgages given to known terrorists (there's a form for that).  Truth in lending acknowledgement.  An "intent to proceed with application" form (page 14).  "Notice of right to receive appraisal form" (page 18).  Acknowledgement of the "Flood Disclosure Protection Act of 1973"  (page 23 - 25).  "Mortgage Fraud Is Investigated By The FBI" form (page 36), with a 30 year prison sentence for lying on any of the forms (because one person lying on a $100K mortgage is FAR WORSE that a government that lies about its billions of wasteful spending).  Multiple reporting of Social Security and driver license numbers.  Then to be told that the one thing holding up the mortgage was that there wasn't a copy of the Social Security cards and drive licenses, because a government agency can't find that information for themselves.

     So now we have the closing in five days.  The lawnmower is still in the truck, soon to be joined by the latest purchase, an air compressor (need the nail gun feature, and it was on sale).  Next: power tools (that will require a real commitment, to just one brand of rechargable battery).