“I will wipe the floor with you.”
I haven’t written in 2 months. I’ve been buried under endless paperwork, phone calls and emails in the process of trying to buy a house. I’m now finally poking my head out from underneath. When I was going through this process I heard romantic stories about the house-purchasing process being a beautiful joint effort, where you, your real estate agent, attorney and mortgage broker all join hands and work together to fight all odds and get you the house of your dreams in your community. Sounded amazing! If only our experience could have been a sliver of that. The whole thing felt more like Captain America: Civil War, as oppose to the Avengers: Endgame that I dreamed of. Just last night, I received an email from my property attorney which said, “I will wipe the floor with you, any day and any place.” Charming. I’m now writing this post from my bedroom in my new home, where I’m hoping that my completely unhinged attorney isn’t about to turn up on my doorstep.
I have so much advice for people who want to embark on the process of buying a house. I might write a blog just with tips to make it go smoothly. One of the most important things I learned is - forget any ideas of finding the perfect real estate agent, or the best attorney, or the hard-working mortgage broker. If you luck out and find those people - congratulations. We were happy with our agent, but everyone else made the process extremely painful and stressful. Be prepared for real, mind-boggling incompetence. When they start to talk about community and being in this together, you should probably just run.
I could make this a lengthy post detailing everything that went wrong, but that’s a bit miserable. The peak of the mortgage broker relationship was when I found out there was $15,000 in the closing costs that either didn’t make any sense or I had already paid, and I tried to ask the broker about it. He responded, “You are wasting my time with these questions.” That $15k was ultimately removed, but boy... it was a battle.
It’s been a whirlwind. Honestly, mostly lows, and so, so many moments where I just didn’t want to get the house because I wanted the process to end. But then the highs came when we got the keys and my friends all came in to help us make the house a home. It’s very exciting, and this is where the genuine heartwarming feeling of family and community comes together. Friends have flown in from other states, others have cleared their work days to come and help out, and others have turned up with goggles and masks ready to do whatever needs to be done!
So here we are. I wish the process to get here had been very different, but the insanity of the experience has been a learning curve. Folks are probably wondering what happened with my attorney. I signed an engagement letter with him for $1500, and he wound up charging me $1750 after closing. I asked him why he charged an extra $250, and he flew into aggression and made comments to me about “people like you.” He eventually told our real estate agent he would drop round a cheque for $250. Then, after agreeing to that, I received a bizarre late night email from him, threatening to “wipe the floor” with me in court. I mean, dude... keep your $250. Just make this utter madness stop.
