Early in my career I worked for a real estate attorney. There was a real estate buyer named Lisa I was working with whom I will never forget.  She was a single mom and was looking to make her first real estate purchase with her mother.  

The road to approval

Lisa's desire to move to a better neighborhood and become a homeowner was strong. Her employment history was solid, but her credit was spotty.  She needed her mother as a co-signer because she hadn't been in her current position for that long, and the income from her previous positions was significantly lower than her current position.  Her mother's income wasn't high and she too had credit "issues". Needless to say, the ride to loan approval was a rocky one.

When I received Lisa's loan approval letter on the fax, it came back with at least 5-10 conditions that needed to be satisfied prior to closing.  I worked with Lisa to make sure she got together the documentation that her lender needed and to communicate the details of what the lender needed to Lisa to make sure what she had would satisfy the conditions listed.  

Once we sent the documentation to Lisa's lender and the loan came out of underwriting, it was, again another list of about 5 or so conditions.  So we went through the process of gathering together documentation, sometimes needing to find substitutes that would meet the approval of the lender after checking with them to make sure they would take something different, than off to underwriting again.  

This process happened no less than three times, and we had to request at least three different extension's of the financing contingency AND the closing date from the Seller and the seller's attorney.

Are we done yet? 

In the end, the loan ended up closing.  It was several weeks after the original date on the contract, and many candle burning hours spent with Lisa and her mother trying to speed up the process and at the same time, juggling a discontented listing agent, seller's attorney, title company, and seller.  But it did close, and Lisa, her mom, and her 2 year old son moved into a better neighborhood. 

I assumed this move would be it for awhile.  Lisa and her mom would enjoy homeownership, dig some roots, and start to build some equity in their house.  So I was shocked, and so was the rest of the law office where I worked, when another contract came across the fax nearly 5 months later for Lisa and her mom to buy another house, contingent upon the sale of the house they nearly didn't close on 5 months ago.

We accepted the contract at the law office.  When I spoke with Lisa, she said she really wanted to upgrade to this house, it had a brick exterior which she much preferred.  She had also just been promoted, so felt that this would be an affordable move for her.   I was skeptical.

     Our customers need to keep it real and so do we

You can imagine that problems occurred almost from the start with the lender.  Lisa had just received the promotion, so her salary history wasn't reflective of the higher amount.  She hadn't incurred much debt since the time of her last loan, but some as I recall.  And then there was the issue that her house had to sell before she could buy this one. 

When the problems started to creep up on this file and it seemed as if they would continue and it was a no win situation, we had to have a consult with the client.  She ended up agreeing, reluctantly, that maybe this wasn't the best time for her to upgrade.

So what was my lesson learned?  Actually there were three.

The first was the fact that Lisa is human, and human nature can take the side of greed.  Lisa achieved one goal and she wanted to aim higher, now.  Nothing wrong with that, she just didn't have the means to get there at that time. 

Second, we should have backed out of representation in the second contract.  Many law offices don't get paid until closing either, the one I worked for was one of those law offices.  We had already lost money on the first deal just in the hours spent alone. 

Third, maybe we shouldn't have worked so hard on the first deal.  If it took three times in underwriting to close the loan, maybe it wasn't meant to be at that time.

I wonder what position Lisa and her mom are in now.  Did they end up staying in their house?  Did they refinance or get any home equity lines of credit?  Did they upgrade to a new house? Their deal closed 10 years ago and I wonder where they stand in this current real estate climate. 

I hope their roots are solid and strong.