Boxes and Moving

Danny wrote a little about our moving situation.  We were all cleared with our mortgage, supposed to sign loan docs on Saturday and found out Friday that our loan got pulled.  It was stressful.  After gathering information, I had hope that the mortgage company really closed its doors to the majority of small business owners.  Our broker said that with our reserves, they should have closed the deal so he restructured the loan, which he felt would do nothing and moved onto applying for a loan with quicken which still seems to be giving loans to small business owners.  They called Danny's work and found out that he wasn't working at full capacity.  It really stressed Danny out but I was surprisingly at peace about the whole thing.

The thing I was most stressed about was knowing what to do with our tenants, so I called them up and they were stressed but have a little more time for this loan to go through.  Not ideal since they have to be out of the 1st but still seem interested.  Some because of things beyond their control and some because they still really like the house.  I love the home and was bummed to think that maybe we wouldn't get it.  The sellers wanted us to take a mortgage with them, with a higher interest rate and the idea to refinance in a couple of months when we are working again but we both knew that was too risky.  We didn't mind putting half down or the interest rate for a couple months but were not willing to gamble that in a couple months we would get a loan or what the interest rates would be.  We were find that if they wanted to move on instead of giving us an extension, than that is what was meant to be.  They gave us an extension so that was step one.  I wrote a letter explaining that we were financially solid and had hope that another lender was still granting loans to small business owners and reminded them that in this economic climate, this could happen to anyone, which is sad but true.  Companies are decreasing salaries, furloughing a lot of people and having hiring freezes.

Someone told me about how her sisters company told everyone who makes above a certain amount is getting a 30% decrease in salary.  Another company put a freeze on all new hires.  People who have probably moved or in the process of moving, gave their employer notice and now have no job.  The ripple effect of this will be everywhere.  It hasn't hit the housing market yet but it will.  Especially in this area where you really can't buy a home with any contingencies.  Most people have to qualify for a home without needing to sell their current home.  So there is a handful of buyers out there who are financially ready to go, but there are also buyers who are unwilling to make large financial decisions right now, losing jobs, getting pay decreases and mortgage companies who are unwilling to lend.

It has been an interesting time in the mortgage industry.  I am not expert but it has been fascinating to me to see what is going on.  Interest rates went super low, tons of people refinanced at these great rates and then within a week they bounced up almost an entire point. Something that never happens.  So you had people locked in and then you had companies unwilling to buy mortgage backed securities since the rate they were buying them up for was so much higher.  It made them cash strapped.  You then throw the governments safe holds on top of that and people are told they don't need to pay their mortgages for 6 months and can't lose their homes. I think at this point most people are paying their mortgages who can because of penalties that people are still accountable for. With that said, nobody knows if those penalties will be taken away.  I would assume not to safeguard mortgage companies, but you just never know and that along with people who really can't pay mortgages and the thousands that are losing their jobs have put mortgage companies in panic or taking extreme precaution which I understand.  We have never had so many people unemployed.  The ramifications haven't hit yet in most sectors of that but if this keeps going, which it could, there will be huge ramifications.  I think you will see a change in the housing market in the next 1-2 months.  The market needed a correction anyway, but it could happen real fast, real soon.

We still feel good about buying our home.  We knew when we bought it that the market was going to correct.  We didn't know when or how bad, but we felt like it logically was due.  If we didn't love the home or feel like it was within our means, we would have pulled out of the deal.  But we love the home.  We feel like it will be a great home to raise our kids and be part of an amazing community.  And ultimately it feels right for reasons I am sure we aren't even aware of.

I am grateful for prayer.  We have placed it in the Lord's hands.  If it is meant to be, we feel like it will all work out and if not, we will stay here and find another home sometime in the future.  We would probably wait a year or so, let Tyler finish middle school here, and let the market settle but I really don't feel like that is the plan, so we shall see.  I am grateful that I am at peace with whatever happens.

Danny is at peace as well. I think once I told him that if it doesn't work out, we just stay here, he felt better knowing that was the worst that could happen.  He is having a harder time than me I think.  A lot of that is because he really misses going to work and doesn't have his hobbies to work on because we are all packed up. 

We spent a day moving a lot of boxes to the garage and organizing some in the family room to make things more manageable to live in and after we did that, life was so much better here.  It felt like the walls were closing in on us, but now we can live. There are still a lot of boxes in the living room and our kitchen stuff is in boxes along the wall in the kitchen, but it is manageable.  So we shall see what this week brings.  I feel good. 

Danny laughs at me because I still like to see what is on the market in Walnut Creek and what is selling and it makes me love our home more and more.  It just confirms to me that it is the perfect home for us.  I prayed that we could have a home where our kids would want to be and where we could have other kids over, and I really feel like it is set up perfectly to do that.  We got back into the swing of school last week.  I am organizing some classes I want Scott and Tyler to take and excited for that.  That is for another post.