It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over

Although I’m continuing to try to read Robert Penn Warren’s early poetry I’m have some serious problems concentrating on them. Turns out, for me at least, it’s not a good idea to try to read poetry when I’m upset or distracted by real-life events.

And I’m more than a little of both after spending four and half hours on the phone this morning dealing with insurance companies and title companies. It’s a good thing I’m retired, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to keep up with all the phone calls, faxes, and paper shuffling that apparently comes with buying and sellling a home.

The latest Catch-022 is insurance on the new home. In order to close, I need to have a pre-paid insurance policy. That seemed fairly straightforward, as I thought I would just get my current agent to renew my policy.

You know what they say about assumptions. I found out that my previous claim on the shower leak was now going to lead to a 35% premium increase for the next three years. And since the new house is a more expensive house, the insurance was going to cost that much more.

Unhappy with that little discovery, I decided to see what my auto insurer would charge me for home coverage. If the agent can be believed, it will cost me $400 less/year than Farmers would. Unfortunately, he can’t issue me a policy without a copy of the appraisal. And, of course, the mortgage company doesn’t have the appraisal back yet. After several emails (Thanks, Comcast, for the fact that my $45/ month cable network has been up and down more times today than a yo-yo. It has been so intermittent that I haven’t been able to reply to a single email immediately after I received it) and a number of phone calls I think that I have this problem resolved, too. Unfortunately, that meant that I didn’t get any of the jobs around the house done today so I’m even further behind than when I started the day.

I’m amazed how much I let these things bother me. In fact, I think I was less upset by the announcement two years ago that I had throat cancer and needed surgery or radiation therapy immediately if I was going to survive than I am by all the hassle involved in buying a house.

This just shouldn’t be this hard. It’s not like we don’t have good credit, lots of equity in our home, and, if we really wanted, enough money in the bank and in stocks to pay for the home outright. We’re borrowing less than half the cost of the house, so there’s no way the bank, or lender, whoever that might be, could lose money on the deal unless global warming raises the sea level 1,300 feet or Mount Rainier blew its top like Mount St. Helens did a few years ago. And if those things did happen, banks would have a lot more problems than my piddling loan.

Do you think it would be any harder to borrow the money if we couldn’t afford the house?

2 thoughts on “It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over”

  1. Well, if you were borrowing a much, much higher percentage of what the house was worth, the various paper-shufflers would play on your sense of shame, for not having enough money. Other that that, I think it is probably the same. I was so damn relieved when I closed on my condo last fall — good luck with your purchase.

  2. Yeah, it’d be easier if you were overextending yourself. On paper, we were when we bought ours — and we just sailed right through the whole thing.

    We get the last laugh, though — we’re prepaying ’em out of most of their interest.

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