A Full Time Job

Oh my! Being self-employed isn't the easiest thing, but it's way easier than applying for a mortgage! When we made the decision to go ahead and buy another house before we'd sold our existing home, I had no idea what I was getting into.

The last time I bought a house was 36 years ago. They didn't want nearly so much stuff. I have been working for days just trying to keep up. First of all, true to form, they need to make sure that you actually have enough money to pay cash for it in the bank before they agree to make a loan. (I remember when I was in my 20s telling a loan officer that if I had the money, I wouldn't need a loan. - Goodness! It's still the same. They only want to loan it to you if you already have it! Which at this point in my life is fine, because I'd rather take out a loan than pay the taxes on taking it out of an IRA.

But I hadn't counted on all of this. Affidavits for divorces. Constantly updating bank statements and investment account statements. Getting an "award" letter from Social Security stating how much you're getting for the coming year - even though the same amount has been coming into your bank account monthly without fail for the past 6 years. Proving that you've paid your 2018 taxes, even though you don't have a "payment plan". I can go on and on. I've been asked to provide all kinds of documentation that is virtually impossible to provide. - Some because it's virtually impossible and some because it's in Texas because who would think you needed to bring that with you??

I have spent hours and days on the phone with the IRS, the SSA, different investment companies and banks. What do they want from me???

All I can say is that if we had this to do over again, we would have done it when we were in our 50s. We are just too old for this kind of BS. Both of our credit scores are in excess of 800. What on earth do they want? Is the credit score not some kind of indication that we're going to pay our bills? (I'm NOT Donald Trump, after all.)

The grand plan was that our house would sell first and we'd buy the new house with the proceeds.That didn't exactly work out. And the reality is that we're too old to put our lives on hold waiting for a sale. We'll just get on with it! And so we have - but it's really hard work! Much harder than I expected.

And today my task was to contact the insurance agents to get a quote for home insurance. And they want to know almost as much as the mortgage company. Date of birth, employer, previous employer, etc. and so on. When he asked me if I was employed, I wanted to tell him that my full time job was providing information to the mortgage company.

In the meantime, I've looked up the average numbers. The average credit score is 580 - ours are both over 800. The average down payment is 3.5%. Ours is 20%. The average debt to income ratio is 43% - ours is less than 30%. Why do these people want to torture us?? They should be lucky to have us. I'm just about to lose it. I am tempted to pull the money out of our investment accounts, pay for the house outright and tell the mortgage company to get lost. We will see.