one week to closing

[cahn]

Yesterday we handed over a truly obscene amount of money and signed a massive amount of paperwork. I jibbed twice and D jibbed once over what exactly we were signing our names to, but we knuckled down under the combined glares of the escrow officer and the loan officer. (Nothing that I'm seriously horribly concerned with, mind; just... for example, we had to sign forms giving some unspecified person the right to look at some of our tax return information, unspecified because our lender could sell the loan... but I still don't like not having that specified.)

Because this is the sort of thing I do, a book review at this point: Mortgage Ripoffs and Money Savers (Carolyn Warren) was not actually very useful for us because no one (!) actually tried to rip us off... no last minute prepayment penalties tacked on or anything like that. Everything was almost painfully above-board (the best part was when the lender wanted us to document why our credit report had been pulled. Answer: YOU pulled it!) However, I still found the Warren very entertaining to read, and I can imagine that it would have been really useful three years ago or so. I rather recommend it if you want to read crazy finance hijinks, or would like an insider's point of view with respect to the amoral meltdown that was the mortgage industry.

Closing is on Friday. (at which point, presuming all goes well, we shall invite you all to visit :) )

Comments

[joyce.livejournal.com]

Interesting. We handed over the obscene amount of money and signed at closing (and got keys!). What are you guys doing on Friday, then? :)

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

Huh. The lender and escrow people said they needed three days before closing to... I don't know what they are doing, actually... confirm that the loan is okay and the down payment was okay and blah blah blah? We don't do anything else the rest of the week. Friday the escrow people file the deed with the county and our real estate agent procures keys and gives them to us :)

Yeah, I thought all this happened on closing day too. Maybe it's a CA thing?

[nolly.livejournal.com]

Alas, I can be of no help -- my sellers were slow movers and rented back from me for a week or two, and I don't remember if "signing the mass of papers" was officially closing or if there was processing time in between, since I didn't take possession for a bit anyway.

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

My real estate agent says it's a SoCal thing... apparently those East Coasters are more into signing everything at closing itself. According to her, anyway.

[ase.livejournal.com]

Eee house? Good luck on Friday!

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

Thanks! We have no more to do, and it sounds like we're pretty much good to go... so things look good :)