My husband and I are in a horrible situation. Since February we have been working on our credit to buy a house. We were talking with one lender who was giving us advice and then he kind of gave up on us. We called around off a list I found on HUD and found a lender who said they would also help us fix our credit and get a loan. This was the beginning of Sept. She said we only needed to get my husbands score up by about 15 points and we would be set to get a loan. Well we believed her and did what we were told. By the middle of Sept she was confident his score was about to get a huge boost in Oct and we should go look for houses. I knew something wasn't right, we hadn't even given her basic paperwork, but I guess we got caught up in the excitement after trying for so long.
Well we looked at houses and after only 7 we found one we were in love with. She told us to pursue it and it would be OK. We sign papers to go into Escrow thinking in a week we will do a credit check and things will all fall into place. We were complete fools I guess because she ran our credit and it barely went up. She kept making promises that we should do this and that and the following month it would go up. The owner of the house was willing to wait (kind of desperate because moving out of country and didnt want to short sale house or rent it). The next month comes (Nov) and still not where we need to be! We tell the lender, look, we can't keep going on like this, even if the owner of the house will keep waiting. She says she'll pay for a credit analysis that will tell us when his score will get the boost we need (as if that is all we are waiting on). News comes back at 3-6 months.
We are ready to just give up but then my husbands oldest son comes to live with us. We are now 7 people cramped in an 3 bd, 1 ba 1100 sq ft house. The leder tells us we can get the FHA Access loan. Practically guarantees it. We just need to do this and that and then by the 15th of Dec we will start getting ready to close. Well the payments on this loan are supposed to be $1934 a month. I really felt it was way too much (our income before taxes is $5800, and my husband works construction so in the rainy season doesnt always work, but does get unemployment). So we ask her when to give notice to make sure we are all on the same page. She says go ahead and give notice Dec 1st and we say great, lets close Dec 26th, and she says great, no problem.
Well Dec 26th comes around and we aren't signing paperwork. We aren't even approved for a loan yet. Our file needs to go to the senior underwriter for approval. We had no idea. We are obviously completely niave about this process and feel like total fools. Days later she tells us guess what, I dont think you are going to get this loan, but let me go into one last meeting with the senior underwriter and get back to you. It probably isnt going to happen though, sorry, So we call the rental co in hopes to get back on our month to month rental agreement (we rented for a year then went onto month to month. its been about 1.5 yrs now). Well the rental co says, sorry you need to get out, the owner of the house has sold it. This is news to us. We never knew the house was on the market, no one has come to look at it, appraise it, inspect it, etc. (and I am a SAHM mom, always home).
So now we are out a place to live and a home. The lender lady comes back with one last list of items we need to have and then we can be approved. Of course we have no idea after all this if producing these things will even get us approved. And when it will be. She can't ever give us accurrate time frames on anything that is going to happen or even be honest with us. I understand it is our fault for being ignorant and trusting.
Anyway, the question is do we even try to continue to pursue this house (yes unbelievably the seller has held on since Sept!) with the fact that we still dont know if we will be approved and the high mortgage on the Access loan. Otherwise we are out on the streets looking for a new rental. I would have been fine to stay renting here and now we cant/ I love the neighborhood and my kids have friends. There isn't even any rentals in the neighborhood. That means moving to a new neighborhood in a house that is a potential dump (because we are in a rush). Not even thinking about buying a house for another year.
I would love some insight and input into this. Do we even have any rights or recourse in this situation? Is what this lender has done even OK?
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