Victory!

I do not like paperwork.   I know this sounds funny for a guy who buys about 8,000 sheets of copy paper every month, but I’m not in this business because I like that part of it. I’m in it because we always achieve victory at the end of the process, and I am into victory in a big way!  

I love calling someone to say, “Your loan funded,” or “Your Deed recorded and the home is now yours.”   I also get a kick out of the people who call me after the first night in their new home to tell me how thrilled they are and to thank me for my role in making it possible.   I also like getting letters through the years as my clients have babies and send me pictures of their expanded families. That’s what makes my juices flow.

I also get a great kick out of letters I receive from my readers telling me stories of their victories, and usually, the frustrations that happened to them along the way.   Frequently, they tell me about some piece of advice that I gave them that helped them get through successfully.   I received such a letter the other day from a reader in Northern California .   She and her husband had found their dream home and it looked as if it was going to be pretty easy to buy, but, as it turned out, they had to overcome a lot of obstacles along the way.

First, they had to refinance their current home, getting some cash out for the down payment on the new place.   They would then rent out that home, the first step toward building wealth in real estate.   That went smoothly.   Then they concentrated on the purchase.   Although the home was on a permanent foundation, it was considered a manufactured home, a different category than a “normal” site-built home.   Different rules, and not all lenders lend on those, so the first lender backed out.

The next lender approved them, but at the end had a problem accepting that they had a rental agreement on the old home to offset the payment on that home, to make the qualifying ratios work.   They also had a problem understanding why someone was moving from a more expensive home in the city, to a less expensive home in the country.   Point: Lenders really think that you are really buying a rental property and want to charge you the higher non-owner-occupied rate on the loan.

The good news is that the seller was willing to give extensions on the escrow – a total of over six weeks – so it required patience on their part too.   The other good news is that the mortgage broker they were working with was one of those people who, as I like to say, “will lie down on the train tracks for his clients.”  

Without his persistence at overcoming obstacles, victory would never have been possible. I can guarantee you that a lot of other loan officers would have just given up and moved on to the next deal.   So hooray for him!  It also shows the value of the buyers’ persistence. There were a number of opportunities for them to give up and find another home. You never know what obstacles you are going to face when you try to buy a home.  

This is just one story and I have heard hundreds of them, and it’s always a slightly different problem and usually one that no one anticipated. My point here is that it is vitally important in selecting a real estate agent and a mortgage loan officer to find ones who will ride the road with you until you achieve victory. Get those references and check them out.

Finally, I want to add this quote from her letter. “ I wish more people were interested in your articles than in what  "what’s-her-name" did at the Super Bowl! “

So do I.