What a mess! Do you think we'd qualify? *UPDATED 10/13*

[Elcid89]

Have you not been given a goodfaith yet from the lender with your estimated closing costs?

[Anonymous]

I had a nightmare of a time with Navy Federal.  Originally, I wasn't even supposed to BE on the loan. My FH was going to get it by himself until they informed him that because he's getting out of the military in April, they couldn't use his income. I got thrown on the loan because my DTI is extremely good and my pay is steady with tons of steady OT. I worked 520 hours of it last year, and am on the same track this year according to my pay stubs.

But Navy Federal hasn't really done anything by the books. I'm convinced our loan officer was a complete QUACK. He couldn't answer 1/2 my questions, I had to pester him by phone to get him to check his email and even address my questions (I would wait 2 days after sending the email to call!). The very FIRST thing we told him was that we were going to be married before we could close (since our wedding is this month) and that we could then qualify for the VA loan using my income. He supposedly submitted our packet to UW on Wednesday of last week. When I called on Monday to check in, he was conveniently not there but another LO told me that our package hadn't even been submitted and he submitted it for us. Then earlier today, the UW kicked it back to our LO saying that we didnt qualify because we weren't married.  Should that not have been included in the original packet that was sent, since it's one of the very first things we disclosed to him, and certainly the backbone of our whole packet being VA? Not to mention the most recent deletion letter that once the item falls off my CRs my scores should increase hopefully by at least a few points.  Anyway, the LO sent it back to UW with an explanation, then less than 2 hours later it was denied because they said while my history looks decent, DTI is good, and my scores are within parameters, the scores aren't as high as they'd "like". I've heard that NF is notoriously difficult to get a mortgage through anyway.

I've read good things about the new guy we've applied with and his company, so hopefully we'll hear something.

As far as a good faith estimate, I have not even heard that mentioned in this whole process, though my realtor used to work for a bank and assured me that for the price, location and other factors, our closing should be right around 1500. The house is outside city limits, and not in a flood zone. I dont remember my friend having to pay 6 months of insurance or balance of the property taxes either, unless that was somehow rolled into closing. I never wrote checks for those two things.

Honestly, the idea of paying 200 or so dollars more to rent in the area drives me nuts, and for an apartment too, not even a house. To rent a house it costs pretty close to double what we'd pay for a mortgage. I know that there are maintenance costs for owning a home, but if it means that for the next few months I have to work some OT, cut back on shopping, and eat cereal for lunch a few times...I'm ok with it.  It's all worth it in the end, right?

Besides, the next 8 weeks I have 24 hours of OT every weekend cause a girl is on maternity leave. That'll give us a nice bump in income to throw in savings. The moving part is taken care of, and the utility fees are being paid for as a gift by the radiologists I work with. They offered, who am I to say no??

I appreciate your advice and concern, I really do. It's sound advice, and I should probably follow it. But I'm stubborn, and have yet to get myself in over my head. I'll run myself into the ground with OT and part-time jobs and second hand everything before I let go of something that I want.  But my fiance and I have decided that if we can't get it through this mortgage company, we're going to take your advice and let it go, wait a bit, then give it another shot. I just really, really, reeeeeally hope it doesnt come to that!

[Elcid89]

Well, I've said my obligatory fatherly message

If it were me, I would have walked away from the deal while I still had my recoupment of earnest money intact from the denial.

You need to tell your lender than you want to see estimated closing costs. The real numbers at closing will go up or down from there depending on which day of the month you close, but it will give you a "you need to be prepared to write a check for this amount at closing" ballpark to plan for.

Your friend's loan, unless I am mistaken, was seller paid closing. He would never have seen these fees or had to pay them, because the seller paid them for him. Any lender is going to make you prepay homeowners / hazard and estimated property taxes into escrow at closing.

Get those numbers from your lender. NF should have given you one the first time that you sat down with them. Never, ever do a mortgage over the phone. Bad bad bad bad idea IMO. It leads nowhere happy and will make you want to shoot people.

[Anonymous]

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@Elcid89 wrote:

Well, I've said my obligatory fatherly message

If it were me, I would have walked away from the deal while I still had my recoupment of earnest money intact from the denial.

You need to tell your lender than you want to see estimated closing costs. The real numbers at closing will go up or down from there depending on which day of the month you close, but it will give you a "you need to be prepared to write a check for this amount at closing" ballpark to plan for.

Your friend's loan, unless I am mistaken, was seller paid closing. He would never have seen these fees or had to pay them, because the seller paid them for him. Any lender is going to make you prepay homeowners / hazard and estimated property taxes into escrow at closing.

Get those numbers from your lender. NF should have given you one the first time that you sat down with them. Never, ever do a mortgage over the phone. Bad bad bad bad idea IMO. It leads nowhere happy and will make you want to shoot people.

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HAHA! Took the words out of my mouth!!  So true.  I wanted to throw our ever-expanding paperwork file at him at the very least! My fiance sat down with them originally, and he was actually given a preapproval letter!  They didn't give him much of anything after that, and our loan officer was pretty sketchy. I'm convinced that his lack of motivation was a big part of our denial. I had LOTS of good documentaion and paperwork that probably would have at least made them take a little longer in their decision.

We got lucky and got an extension on the due diligence date for Oct 13th. So as long as we have acceptance or denial by then, we can still get our earnest money back. The seller seems to be pretty motivated to get rid of the home though, it's kindof a wonky situation for them from what I understand. There was a whole mess with timber rights.  They had been sold, but we wanted them to be included with the property because a good at least 9.5 acres of the property are heavily wooded. So the seller has obtained them and will transfer them back to us at closing.

Yes, my friend's loan was seller paid closing. This one is as well, up to 1500. I will definitely ask for the good faith estimate though. I'm going to call up the new LO first thing in the AM and make an appointment to sit down with him and bring all our paperwork. I could probably start to rival some phone books with the size of the file I now have!

Whatever happens, I'm just ready to stop bunking with my parents. My mom is driving me absolutely bonkers with her obsession with the election campaign coverage. CNN or Fox news is on blast 24-7. It's enough to keep you awake at night. (as I type this it's 2:27AM!)

[Anonymous]

I'm not afraid to admit when I'm wrong. And Elcid, you were right.

The second lender wasn't able to get us approved because we don't have enough in assets and apparently I don't have enough revolving credit. The fact that my FH and I are not yet married also played a factor, and while all but one of our 3 loans is due to be paid off in the next 6 months, it was still somehow being factored into the DTI in the automatic approval system.

FH has a 740 mid score. Mine is a 648 now.

This is what the LO suggested we do:

1) After getting married: FH add me as an authorized user to the two credit cards he has that are currently at zero balance, charge 15-20 dollars on it, let it hit the statement and then pay it off.

2) Pay down the big loan, and pay the two smaller ones off or almost off.

3) Drop as much money as possible in savings.

4) Call him back in 90 days and try again.

I called our realtor to cancel the contract and cried when we hung up. FH and I worked so hard on getting everything ready to get this house. Our realtor called the seller's agent and something was mentioned about the possibility of renting this house until we can buy it. I told her that we'd ABSOLUTELY be interested in that, because it would prevent someone else from snapping it up and get me out of bunking with my parents. She's still waiting to hear from the seller's agent to try to solidify that plan.

Anyone else have any other advice that might help me get qualified?

[webhopper]

You might be able to lease the property and buy an "option" where they couldn't sell to anyone else for 1 yr. This would give you and your man time to get things straight. Good luck and tell him thanks for his service!
my husband is also a marine; served from 2001-2006. He is pursuing his chapter 31 benefits for education now and will go to school starting in spring.
The stipend for post 911 GI bill is very nice. You may want to encourage your guy to look at his education benefit options while y'all are still young.

[Anonymous]

That sounds pretty interesting about buying an option. I'll ask our realtor to look into it. We expect to have the ball rolling around the 3 month mark anyway as I'll be working about 30 hours of OT every week for the next 6 weeks at least and we are getting married this month. That'll give us another 1100 in BAH plus 300something in BAS which can go straight to savings along with all my OT money. By mid-december we should be sitting pretty as far as assets.

And it's so funny that you mention the GI bill!  I only just convinced him a couple months ago to give school a shot. I'm in school as a bio major and getting ready to change my major to nursing at ECU. This home is about a 25 minute commute from campus, but outside all the craziness of the city so it's perfect for both of us to work on our education. The payment on it would cost less than most apartments in decent neighborhoods and we're pretty enamored with the location.

Thanks to your hubby for his service as well and congrats to him for pursuing his education! Loving a service member can sure be tough at times, but so worth it.

[webhopper]

Well loving a marine is definately different than anyone else. You grow a tolerance for guns of all types. Learn more about war history than you ever wanted to know and you get to hear that good old expression about how pain is just weakness leaving the body. You learn to open your doors wide to any and all of his marine brothers and to always give to any charity that supports our troops. But... my husband cleans; cooks; works; and takes care of me. I'm the main breadwinner in our family and its nice to come home and just have everything taken care of. Marines never know how to quit. They just keep going. My husband was my rock when I was going through my house buying ordeal. We literally ended up homeless for about 3 months and he never complained. We weren't even married yet and he still stuck it out. That's how I knew he was the one. He didn't care about how much money I had and he certainly isn't materialistic. Our new home has an outdoor building with ac and heat and a seperate septic and plumbing. he has turned it into his ammo room where he reloads bullets. Our partnership is strong and I'm glad to have him