Lets start out with HemmerFest because that was way more fun then our closing. ; )
This weekend (on my Dad's side) we had a camp out at their hunting shack, which we called HemmerFest. Bring a tent, food and drinks and stay all weekend. It was kind of like real camping... no running water, no electricity, porta-pottys. But... our porta-potty smelled like lilacs!! For real! Okay, so they light a huge candle that was burning from Friday afternoon until Sunday afternoon when we left! Wonderful of those Hemmer Boys to think of us girls who are having to use this all weekend long!!
The weekend was filled with camp fires, four wheelers, dirt bikes, and food! Yup - I rode the dirt bike around the woods!! With only "choking it off" once! I even kick started it myself! My dirt biking husband should be proud!! Alright, it was a tiny dirt bike from when my brother was a 6th grader... but still it is very real... all the real functions/features of big one.
Friday night was cold! I am not sure what the temperature was but I froze all night long!! In the wee hours of the night we are woken up by a pack of coyotes!! The scariest/creepiest sound ever!!! They had to be just in the next field over and they were chanting and howling like crazy!! Something I would be okay with if I never heard it again.
Saturday was nice and hot! More food, camp fires, 4 wheeling.... and a much warmer night!! No freezing in my tent... I could even sleep with my head sticking out of the sleeping bag this night!! No coyotes either!! Or... I didn't hear them. Some people did hear them. Woke up to my lovely Uncle calling in Sandhill Cranes!!!! Seriously!! I think he stood right outside our tent and called one in!! You are right... it was better then a pack of coyotes chanting and howling over their fresh kill!!
It was Elly's first camp out... she thought our tent was so fun to play in. Except it was 500 degrees inside there with the sun beating down and she wanted to snuggle and pretend to sleep!
Alright... you twisted my arm! I'll tell you about our closing! As if this whole process of getting this house wasn't enough of a learning process for our first time buying a home. How about a rocky closing to top it off! I'll try to make it short.
Wednesday: I call the bank to tell them we need final #s by tomorrow afternoon! They tell me fine, not a problem. We don't have #s yet but we will by late tomorrow afternoon.
Thursday: The morning, afternoon, mid-afternoon tick on by and we still don't know our #s. (We need to know how much $$ to bring to closing before we leave because our 'new' town doesn't have our bank.) 4:30 we get a call... still don't know the final #s but they gave us a guess. Fine. It works. We drive back to Jesse's parents.
Friday: Get to the realtor's office she tells us the closing lady is running late but not to worry she would be there in 15 minutes. Realtor tells us they have #s but not approval. What this basically means is that the seller won't get paid. Hmm... don't think this stickler-penny-pinching-cranky-don't-know-how-to-smile-old-lady is going to like this!! Who is the lucky person who gets to tell her!??! Not me!!
Closing lady arrives she explains that they don't have final approval but they will have it before the day is over and the seller will get paid today! Whew! We sign a bazillion papers!!! And now it is the seller's turn to sign papers. By now Jesse is having one of his headaches where his vision starts swirling and he gets a headache. He tells me "Beer makes this go away." I give him a look of... are ya kiddin me?! He tries to explain to me, no really it does - another guy at work gets this same thing and his Dr. told him to drink a beer. Yeah, sure Jesse! Anyway, as we are having this conversation about Beer curing headaches... our closing lady has been on the phone A LOT! Concerning to us... but not really. Our realtor finally comes over and and says "Jesse go get your beer. It is going to be a while." He always gets his way! Charming Jesse we like to say! We literally walk across the street to a bar/restaurant called City Limits. I think this will be our new favorite hang-out when we move here to Stanley. We went here the first time we were in Stanley and after we stopped by the realtor just to check out housing options... and here we are again after signing our life away and buying a house!
We come back and the seller is still in the room with the closer and the closer is still on the phone. We don't know how a closing is suppose to go... so we don't know that this is not normal. I have to say we are about 2.5 hours into closing by now! Finally the seller walks out and she is smiling! First time ever we saw her smiling! We should of known something was up by this!
The closing lady comes out and says "They changed the #s!" HUH? Can they really do this? Then I remembered one of those papers that we signed said that we authorize any changes that need to be done. Dang it! Well the # changing was in the favor of the seller not us! Grrrr! But it was only $170. But still we were upset! And it was our bank who was changing #s!! So Jesse gets on the phone and gives our loan officer an ear full... and says something to her about 'fudging #s' OH... Lesson learned... don't tell a loan officer that they are fudging #s! Wrong lingo!! Then we hear Jesse say "Fine. Let me rephrase this. Why did you change the #s?" She couldn't answer and had to investigate and call us back. Anyway long story short and a lot of waiting and chatting with the closing lady... who wanted to hear how we met and all our juicy life details... it passed the time and distracted us so we told her. : )
They changed the #s because we needed to bring so much $$ to the table at closing and we weren't bring in enough. So they had to change the #s so that we brought more. It is because of the type of loan we have, we had to have so much of a down payment... and because we were having the seller pay our closing costs... she was paying a lot of stuff for us.... like some of our taxes, filing fees, insurance. Good deal for us! We were excited to see that! So anyway... they had to take away $170 from her side (closing fees) and put it on our side (down payment). Fine! It is just a $170 - lets just get this deal done. We sign more papers - the closer faxes documentation to the bank... they approve we are off! We own a home!!!! How fun!!!
We walk out of the room to see the seller sitting out front and our realtor asks her for a key to give to us... because we are now the owners and she is 'renting' it from us. Legally we get the key. She himm-hawed around about giving us a key. She didn't want to give us a key. She said... I leave the back door open. Wasn't good enough for our realtor (who I love!) she said that we need a key. The lady pulls her keys out and says "I guess I can give you this one."
The seller and her realtor leave and it is just Jesse and I standing their with our realtor chatting a bit... mostly about this seller - who we can not believe! Anyway... our realtor got upset at one point during the closing when she found out that the seller got a $170! She left the room and went to talk to the seller's realtor. She apologized for this and explained this to us....
In order for the seller to accept our offer of us paying full price and her living there rent free for 2 weeks we wanted her to pay closing costs. The realtors paid for the closing costs!!!!!!!! The closing costs were $3300!!!! The realtors paid it!!!!! The realtors paid it!!!! Did I say that already?! Jesse and I about fainted! We didn't know what to say but... WHAT?!?!!? Realtor said that the only way to get the seller to accept was if they paid the closing... and our realtor said YES!!! The most shocking amazing part of this all is... we had an offer drafted where we were just going to pay the lady what she wanted. Which meant the realtor would have been paid her full commission!! Yet she accept taking a $1650 cut off her commission (the seller's realtor and her had to split commission). To me this is just incredible and unbelievable!! You know what our realtor said as she rubbed my arm because I was about to cry and hug her... she says "I thought you guys could use the $3000 more then me." Was she heaven sent or what!!!?
So... what does this say about the seller? It just floors me that she did this! Shocks me!!! Angers me! Frustrates me!
Here is what we have decided... we officially own the home. It is our house, yet we can't move in because she is staying there until the 30th of this month. Monday morning lets go rip out that wall in the kitchen and start remolding! This coming weekend HemmerFest is in our yard! Jesse's Dad is buying a big digging machine on Wednesday... stop by our house on your way home and lets start landscaping! Kidding... we wouldn't do that, but boy would we love to!!
Oh - I think we set a record for the longest closing ever... It was 4 hours long!! The realtors kept telling us they normally go much quicker then this. This isn't normal. We had no idea, it was our first time.
No matter how long it took, how many buttons it pushed, and test of patience... we are home owners!!! Whoop! Whoop!
