Thursday, August 27, 2009

Enough with the phone already!

Holy Jesus, am I ever sick of listening to the phone ring. Between the realtor (who is very cool) and my chosen lender (also very cool) and another lender (not cool), I must’ve spent 3 hours on the damn phone today. And like most people who once cut their teeth on tech support back in the day, I hate the phone.

Scenario: I locked in a great rate (5%) with Lender 1. The catch is, I pay all closing costs unless I go through Pulte’s lender (Lender 2), who would give me 3% toward closing if I did so. I was fine with paying the closing costs because Lender 2 was advertising a higher rate, but my parents pointed out that having fewer closing costs meant a larger down payment, which would make a lower payment and thus offset a higher rate to a certain point. So, I agreed to at least get a good faith estimate (GFE) from Lender 2. I wasn’t particularly looking forward to this because I felt I’d gotten excellent service overall from Lender 1, and I hate taking away business from people I feel deserve it, but money is money, and I couldn’t deny the logic behind at least looking underneath the stone rather than leaving it unturned.

So, to make a long story short, after three days of monkeying around and talking about discount points and the 3% incentive they were supposedly offering, every GFE they gave me either came up with a higher rate, a larger loan amount, or higher closing costs, and usually any two of the three. I finally told them “Thanks but no thanks” earlier this evening, but I still feel irritated at the hard sell and the wasted time. Moreover, considering I had essentially walked away before they came back with their “final offer” of matching the 5% (which turned out to be their FIRST offer, because the loan amount was correspondingly higher by three grand), I feel even more distrustful, and doubly glad I’ll not only be going through an independent lender, but also an independent appraiser, inspector and title insurer. God only knows what shenanigans they might’ve tried to pull once I signed on the dotted line. Lender 1, by contrast, has been very open and transparent, and laid all the cards right out on the table immediately. (And I’ll be happy to provide his contact info to anyone who wants it.)

Pulte’s also the one selling the house, but I’m fine with the house. I trust that I’m getting a good deal there (and my trust will be backed up by an appraisal and an inspection) so that doesn’t bother me. The community itself is very nice. I’m just not at all appreciative of the mortgage arm’s sales tactics. Ugh.

In other news, Casey’s still hanging in there. He’s down a couple more pounds, but seems to be mostly stable, and he gets his meds every day (which he hates). He isn’t hiding under the bed, and still comes looking for pets and kisses. I hope he stays with us a long time. Moocher, by contrast, is getting a little chubby himself, and seems to be mellowing off his neverending path of destruction, thankfully. He’s a very sweet, loving and intelligent cat, and I feel particularly lucky that I have TWO cats like that.