Imagine this: You have a magic ball to see the future – two futures, to be exact, in parallel universes.
In World One, you’ve just closed (two days early!) on your beautiful new home, so you have a bit of time to relax before the movers come. You’re enjoying a celebratory champagne lunch to toast the fab future – and wealth – you’re building. You won your bid among competing offers, but didn’t overpay. You didn’t have to lift a finger to get the deal processed, because you’d already undergone underwriting when you got your pre-approval. And you got a great rate, because you followed the advice of your lender to a T before applying, cleaning up those forgotten medical bills.
Your new home will need a tiny bit of work – cosmetic – to make it shine. But that’s okay – you put low money down and have cash in the bank to get the work done. Once you’ve done the work, you plan to have your Private Mortgage Insurance removed after requesting a re-valuation of your home.
After lunch, you take one last stroll around the neighborhood. On your return, your field of vision blurs. Suddenly, you see yourself in front of your house frantically jamming overflowing boxes into pod containers parked erratically on your lawn. You don’t look like you’ve slept in a week. Your Alternate’s phone rings and you catch a string of expletives just before he lobs the phone into the shrubbery.
You’ve entered the Twilight Zone of World Two, where the B-team lender dropped the ball. In this harried universe, you did not get a “real” pre-approval or strategic advice, so you bid too high to win the house. No one caught those stray medical bills, which made for some stressful cleanup, a higher rate, and a delayed closing. You had to use all your cash as a down payment to get the higher sale price financed. This eroded your moving budget, and your reno budget, to DIY levels. On top of that, you have to give possession TODAY, so you’re making a mad dash to stash your earthly belongings before heading to a motel. Your Alternate Self wonders why it has to be this way.
But as YOU know, it doesn’t!
Small steps on the road to buying and closing a home can land you in the perfect world… or the Twilight Zone! Choose wisely.
