We took a break from house hunting for several months, had our beautiful, little Emma, and then realized quickly that we needed to get out of this crowded apartment! We went to the temple and prayed about where to move, to buy or rent, to wait or look right away. We received very specific guidance, and began looking for houses the very next week. Several listings came up, but they were either not vacant, far away, short sales, or too small....except for one. It looked promising. It was a 3 plus 2 with an attached 2 car garage right here in Nipomo. They were offering a VA Vendee loan to those that qualify with an extremely low interest rate and no pmi. We visited the property immediately, and decided to make an offer. Now, the real story begins...
We were told by the listing agent that he would not even consider our offer if we utilized the USDA loan program we were planning on using. He flat out said that he wouldn't even give our offer to the bank to review if we went that route. He insisted we get prequalified through Bank of America and referred us to local B of A rep named Bonnie Mogan. We already had a loan guy that prequalified us before we started looking, but we were having a hard time getting a hold of him, and frankly he didn't seem to know anything about this type of loan or any loan for that matter. So we called Bonnie to start the process. She didn't seem to know the Vendee loan either and told us that since we weren't vets, she wasn't sure why we were trying to get a VA loan. She was completely uninterested in our business, and never completed our prequalification. Our realtor contacted the listing agent and explained our troubles, and he told us to contact the VA Vendee line at B of A directly.
We contacted William Wilkerson, a Bank of America representative, on approximately November 15, 2010 and he gave us a prequal letter for the above property. He explained this Vendee loan in great detail. It was an incredible loan, and not many people know about it or can qualify for it. It is also available to non-veterans if you fall within the guidelines. We were very excited to qualify and were even more excited to have found someone who actually knew how to do his job, knew about the loan we were trying to get, and cared about doing good work! Thank goodness for William!
However, we had to submit our offer three separate times delaying the process an entire week because the listing agent had no idea how to submit this offer to the asset manager's liking. Apparently since this is a government loan, they are very specific about the format of the offer contract. Instead of finding out exactly what she wanted, the listing agent kept sending it back and forth. When our agent put pressure on him to get it right (we didn't want someone else to swoop in and make an offer better than ours), he had all the paperwork except one page ready to go. Instead of delaying the process again, he decided to forge James and my signatures on that page! My realtor was very upset, but he protested and said, "You wanted it to go faster!" Idiot. She will be filing an ethics complaint against this man shortly. We tried calling William for help with the offer letter, but William had left on vacation. He left us with the name of his co-worker, Travis Mauldin, and said he would help us if we needed it. I called and emailed. My realtor called. The listing agent called. Travis never returned our phone calls or emails. He didn't do jack, but our offer was finally officially accepted on November 24th with an anticipated closing date of December 31st.
We performed our home inspection on November 30th. Nothing major, but we did have some minor plumbing issues and some serious painting to do before we moved in. This home was actually owned by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs back East so they had the house winterized. The inspector had to de-winterize it so he could check the plumbing and the seller insisted we pay to re-winterize after the inspection. Total waste of money- it's Nipomo, the sunniest place in the US!
A week went by and we still hadn't received the paperwork from Bank of America. I called William (he was back- thankfully!) to inquire about our welcome package. He said it should arrive in 5 to 6 business days and that this loan took a little bit of time in the beginning because they had to enter everything in manually, but then it closed very quickly. That was a Wednesday and we were on our way to L.A. to celebrate James' birthday. Figuring that we had some time until the paperwork would arrive, we ended up staying an extra day and arrived home late Friday night. The loan application and Good Faith Estimate that William said wouldn't arrive for 5 or 6 business days were on our porch when we arrived home with a delivery date of December 1st, the Wednesday we left! We looked at it and began filling it out over the weekend, but it was like it was written in another language and all the numbers were off. We were totally confused and hesitant to sign a bunch of papers that had wrong information on it, but it said it needed to be returned by Tuesday.
We contacted William first thing Monday morning, but were informed that he had been moved to another department. I called several times but no one would tell me where William went, and no one seemed to know anything about this loan or my file! We were given the name of Williams' supervisor who we also contacted. We were informed that his supervisor had also been moved to another department. After several calls and several hours of being on hold, we were informed that our file had not yet been re-assigned and we would be contacted by our new loan officer within 2 days. We never received a phone call back from anyone...ever.
We then began contacting the processor that mailed us the paperwork that works in the Department of Veteran Affairs here in California. Apparently it is this department that specifically handles the Vendee loans. Her name is Griselda Ortiz. We began attempting to reach Griselda on that Monday, December 6th. We finally, after calling numerous times, leaving numerous voice mails, and sending emails (all of which she did not return), spoke to Griselda on December 7th after our realtor called and let her have it for not responding to our inquiries. Griselda told us that Good Faith Estimates were always wrong and that we weren't "signing our life away." She also said she could do her job better if she wasn't always being bothered by realtors! She was a peach (James had other words to describe her...many in fact).
At any rate, we over-nighted the paperwork through FedEx and it arrived at her office December 8th before 2pm. We began calling her again to verify that she had received the paperwork on the 9th and to find out if there was any additional information she needed. She did not call or return our numerous messages. In fact, we did not get in touch with Griselda again until December 17th! She informed us that she was only waiting for a verification from James' employer that she had requested on December 13th. We immediately contacted James' HR department and were told that they never received any request from Bank of America. They faxed over the VOE that afternoon. Griselda also informed us that underwriting would take 10 to 12 business days once all of our paperwork was in order. She also let us know that she would be going on vacation and that Angel Braithwaite would be taking over our file. Okay, great. Another person to deal with...they had to better than Griselda though!
We called Angel that day and introduced ourselves and asked her to please go over our file and let us know what else we needed. We were very upset that our file had been sitting on Griselda's desk for over a week collecting dust. Angel actually answered her phone so that was exciting! She told us she would call us back by the end of the day and let us know what our file needed. Surprise- she never called back! So we called her just before the close of business (this is still December 17th). She told us all she needed were W2s for the last 2 years and our Landlord's information (both of which we FedExed to Griselda with the opening package). We faxed over the information any way the following Monday, December 20th.
I began calling Angel December 20th to find out if she received our faxes and once again received no response. Since she was a new employee she did not have an email account or even a voicemail set up. Her phone just rang and rang. I then called her supervisor, Yesenia Sanchez, and left a message with her secretary. I told her secretary how upset I was that I had been repeatedly lied to and tossed around. I asked if Angel was even there and she refused to tell me. She said Yesenia would call me back, but I never heard from Yesenia. This is sounding a bit repetitive, isn't it?
It is now December 21st. At this point, I just resolved myself to the fact that we would not be closing in December. Our papers hadn't even gotten to an underwriter and our realtor told us to call our landlord and see if we could delay our move-out date (we had given notice on December 10th). James was home and still sleeping so I decided to let him handle that when he got up. About an hour later, we received a call from some chick named Silva Momjian. She informed us that Angel Brathwaite was no longer with Bank of America and that she would be taking over our file! She also told us that our file had already been approved by an underwriter except for a few small conditions. What? This was good news, just surprising! We emailed Silva explanations of all the conditions and documentation within the hour. Silva said that she would give the underwriter our additional documentation immediately and have an official approval by the end of the day. She then said we could begin the closing process with our Escrow officer. And Guess what? Silva ACTUALLY CALLED US BACK that same day! She said the file was complete and would be sent to a closer in another department who would be dealing with Escrow.
We then filled out our Escrow papers, and Escrow began the tedious process of getting all the documents to the liking of this original asset manager over at the VA and getting both the seller and lender (who really were the same entity in this transaction) to sign-off on all the numbers. With the Christmas holiday and the specifications of this particular loan, we were told that we would be signing loan docs late Monday night, December 27th (James worked until 7pm, so they said they had a notary service who would come to our home), and recording and closing on December 28th.
Monday rolled around and they still did not have VA approval. Tuesday rolled around, no VA approval. Wednesday, December 29th, at 4pm we get a call from our Escrow officer saying that it is all approved. We just need to sign loan docs and we can get the keys the next day! We were in Santa Maria when she called so we rushed to the bank to get a cashier's check for our portion of fees, dropped by the house, and got to Escrow a little before 5pm. We had docs signed in about 20 minutes and James pointed out that the $125 signing fee for the notary service was still on our papers, and asked them to take it off. They informed us that they couldn't take that fee off without delaying the process until after the new year. She said she would have to redo the paperwork and send it back to the VA for approval and with the holiday coming up we wouldn't close in time. $125 was not enough to mess everything up, but it was the principal of the matter. Escrow had been back and forth with the VA for 3 days making changes and they didn't bother to take off that fee when it was obvious we weren't signing docs late Monday night. We signed the papers, but left feeling like we were robbed. It really was the perfect ending to this whole experience.
We waited on pins and needles all day Thursday. We were told at 2pm that they had received funds and were on their way to record. By 5pm, we were wondering what was taking so long! Our realtor called Escrow and was informed that it had been recorded hours ago! No one from Escrow bothered to call her or us. Our realtor drove straight to us and gave us our keys. I'd like to say the saga ends here, but alas, it does not. We have recently discovered several vital repairs that the home inspector either did not find or the plumber who came to de-winterize created. We started our home ownership with a leaking water heater, two leaks under two different sinks and a wacky sprinkler system that sprays water up through a crack in our drive-way! Our warranty company won't come out until next week because they don't have confirmation of close of Escrow yet. More calls. More headaches.
I know what you're thinking: But your home owners now! And you actually closed a day early! And you got a great deal! Move on, already! I don't mean to sound completely ungrateful. We really are super excited to be home owners. We love our new house and still think, despite the repairs, that it is going to work out great for our family. Our loan is incredibly great, and yes even worth all the hoops we had to jump through. Our payment is not much more than what we were paying for our rent, so that is fun! We also have some wonderful friends who have come over to help paint and fix up the place. And, I can't say enough about our realtor. Daneal, if you are reading this, we love you! Thank you for working so hard for us, for dealing with all these idiots, for being our realtor, friend, psychologist, and advisor! You were the only shining light through this whole process. We are confident, despite all the people who caused us grief, that we will be ready to move in furniture and start making this house a home next week!
