The Marks Chronicles: HOUSE STORY
This is a story that's not really funny - but it's
true. We were looking for a new house in 1988 and finally found one in
which we were interested. We were toying with the idea of making an offer
when we heard that Charlie Jewett was going in for open heart surgery.
So Connie got a plane ticket and flew to Texas to be with him during the
operation. (Q: Why do we say we get on a plane when we really get in the
plane?) Jeremiah and Joshua were driving me crazy when the real estate
agent called to query us about our intentions. I told him to buzz off.
He handed me the pressure line that if we didn't make an offer that someone
else might buy our dream house. I said so what and we ended the conversation.
When Connie returned, we decided that maybe we would
go ahead and buy the house if it was in God's will. We prayed that if we
were to buy this house, then everything must fall into place. We would
interpret a major obstacle as a sign we weren't suppose to move. This is
when things began to happen.
First, we offered $30,000 below the initial list value
of the house. Our dedicated real estate agent, after explaining he was
legally obliged to inform us he was a representative of the seller, said
he was embarrassed to take the offer to the house owner. He went through
seven different closes to get us to increase the offer including but not
limited to fear, begging, cold reasoning, threats and the old "if
you want it, why not just go ahead and make a good offer!!" He did
make the offer contingent on the sale of our house. We got a counter offer
and settled on $25,000 off which is what we would have taken anyway. Our
agent said he had to take a commission cut to make the deal. We felt sorry
for him for about seven seconds.
Now we had to fix up our house to sell. What a hassle!
Connie hired Brian DeWitt, a lad from next door, to do some painting. The
next day his brother Bruce knocks on the door and says he'd like to buy
the house. And he did.
Next came the mortgage brokers. The first one had some
of the lowest rates in town. After talking to him for four hours, he pulls
out the paper work. While he's talking, I read. I ask him about "discount
points" described in a government publication that he's legally required
to show me. He crinkles his brow in puzzlement and says he's not sure what
it means. When it becomes evident that no signing will be done before complete
understanding, we find out that this mortgage has an interest rate that
goes up 1.25 per cent after the first year. That explained why their interest
rates were so low.
The next mortgage broker assured us that their interest
rate figures did not include discount points. So we completed all of the
paper work. A few days later, we got some paperwork in the mail that, among
other things, our loan had a "payable on demand" feature. We
called the broker who said that all morgages had this feature. We called
a third broker who said that wasn't so. It cost us a $50 filing fee, but
we cancelled.
Connie asked the third broker to come to our house
and bring copies of all the papers we would have to sign, now and in the
future . I read them all. We got our mortgage through him. Watch those
mortgage brokers! From our experience, most are either uninformed or slime
balls.
We moved into our house during the first snow storm
in Seattle in 3 years.
Our house is a very very fine house.