Once upon a time, a Buyer had been led to believe the he would be living in his very own home in no time. All he had to do was find the right one.
He's a Teacher and had been one for some time. He got a letter from a Nationally known Lending Institution and he initially has been pre-qualified by this Bank. Hell it was one of the Biggest in the Nation. He contacted this Bank in the town that he was living in at the time. He supplied all of the information they had requested. A few days pass and he is notified that he has been approved for a loan for up to $XXX,XXX. All he had to do now, was find a home. He begins to look....
I got a call from this Buyer about 9 weeks ago. He called about one of my listings but wanted to see others as well. I showed him the home that he called on and several others. Mine was not the most appealing and he chose a different home. I was okay with that. I was his Realtor® now and I was there to help.
We began the negotiations and finally agreed on price with the Seller. (We were well under what he'd been approved for.) We now had a fully executed Sales Contract. It was just a matter of time now, right?
NOT!
A couple of days pass and the contact my Buyer had for his lending institution contacted him and requested a few items, for the underwriting department. He easily complied. We initially wrote the contract with a 30 day closing. His bank called and requested a six week close so they could have everything ready and it would close without a hitch. We amended the contract.
We had the Home Inspection completed the following week and things were progressing smoothly, or so we thought. Two weeks go by and my Buyer is contacted again, by the underwriting department, requesting specific information. He complied. Another week goes by.... I hadn't heard anything from the contact at the Bank in a while so I called her. Her voicemail said she was going to be out of the office until 2 days after our scheduled close date. (She didn't notify my Buyer about her absensce or a contact while she was away.)
I called their main number back and spoke with one of her co-workers. This person could not identify anyone that was handling our contacts workload while she was out. Not good.
I then contacted a Supervisor of hers. Amazingly, in less than 5 minutes, I received an email from our "Out of office" contact. She stated that we would need to push out the closing date by a couple of days. We did an Amend/Extend to push out the date 1 week.
A couple of days go by and my Buyer gets an email from underwriting, requesting a letter from the School he was going to be teaching at. They wanted something in writing guaranteeing that my Buyer was to be employed for YEARS to come.
What?
Being that he is a Schoolteacher, contracts between him and the school are renewed annually. The School couldn't comply. I then spoke with an Agent in our office, who works full time as Teacher and part time Realtor®. I also spoke face to face with a local representative of this particular Bank. Both of them knew of the annual agreements that Teachers had.
As it turned out, the loan was rejected and my Buyer was completely Blown Away! He has decided to wait until the end of the 2012-2013 school year to even think about going through this process again. I told him to go with one of our "Local" banks. The money is here and not 1000 miles away.
I had never had this happen before. I think that all departments within a Lending Institution need to be on the same page. One says, "Yep" while the other says something quite opposite.
Any time a future buyer mentions this Banks name as there go to lender, I will tell them this story. I certainly won't recommend them.
Hopefully they won't have to have 9 weeks of their lives wasted.
Comments(10)