Closing Day...finally

We are home owners!!! We can breathe a sign of relief. Yesterday morning, at 10 a.m. we finally closed on our new home.  The original closing was suppose to be 10 days ago.  We were set to close on Monday, September 24th...that is until we got a call from our bank at 5:00 p.m. on the Friday before closing telling us that the lender the bank was working with to give us our loan had dropped us and canceled the loan. Their reasoning for this decision:  Brent had just closed on his business loan on September 19th and now we were just too risky.  Um...wait...they're deciding this now, on the weekend before our Monday morning closing??  Not cool.  Oh yeah...and to top it all off, they also took the opportunity to inform us that now that Brent owned his own business he was considered self-employed and would probably not qualify for a home mortgage again for another two years because his business needed to show stability.  The lender wouldn't even take into account the fact that Brent will be employed in another dental office 2-3 days a week when his office first opens, so that technically makes him only partially self-employed and provides us with a stable income.  We had gone to great lengths to make sure that Brent closing on the business loan would not effect our home mortgage.  We were assured that the two were independent of one another and that both would go through.  Pointing fingers does nothing in retrospect, but this news was really upsetting because we thought we had done everything right to make sure this didn't happen.

We went through a slew of emotions...anger, sadness, disbelief...and were pretty certain we were going to lose the house.  This house was literally the ONLY home we found in our extensive search of East Cobb and now it felt like it was no longer a possibility that it would be ours.  We thought about going back to being renters again.  There is nothing wrong with renting...please don't get me wrong...BUT it is next to impossible to rent a good, clean house that will allow you to have pets.  Let alone a 100 lb golden-mix. The dog factor constantly limits us in our rental searches.  Plus, renting these days is so expensive...more expensive than our monthly mortgage will be.  So things were looking not so good that Friday afternoon...and we spent the weekend praying...but also doing a lot of moping.

Monday the 24th (the day we suppose to be closing) we met with our bank again to go over our options.  We bank with Georgia Commerce...it's a small bank.  Brent also got his business loan at GA Commerce.  We all agreed that the situation was crummy and we needed a plan.  There was no way we were going to get a conventional mortgage now that Brent is "self-employeed."  At this point, the seller had agreed to extended the contract one week.  If in that one week, we didn't get financing figured out, the house was no longer ours.  And there were about 3 other people that wanted the house, so we knew the seller wouldn't have a problem moving on. Then, a miracle of sorts happened in that meeting.  Georgia Commerce...a bank that typically does business loans, agreed to fund our mortgage "in-house" until we qualify to sell it to a larger bank.  Under normal circumstances, when you obtain a loan through a small bank, they contract with a larger bank and sell them the loan.  As of now, our loan is being housed at GA Commerce until Brent's office shows growth and stability, at that point it will be sold.  What a blessing!  We did not get to take advantage of the low, low interest rate we were going to have on our first loan that "dropped" us, but the interest rate is still low and our mortgage didn't increase too much.  In this circumstance, we were SO fortunate that we were working with a small bank because I know if we had gone with Wells Fargo or Bank of America, they would have said too bad, so sad. We are so grateful to GA Commerce for pulling through for us and giving us this unique option!!

Within a little over a week, GA Commerce orchestrated the loan and we were able to close yesterday.  What a relief!  We are so excited to be home owners and excited to start this new chapter of our lives.  We have to have a few things done to the house before we move in, so we are looking at a move in date toward the end of October.  I'll post pictures once we take some, but my two favorite things about the house are that the girls have a BIG playroom and it has a really pretty sunroom with skylights!  It's a great family home and we are excited to make memories there!  SO...in the end, it all worked out, but not without some stress and a major roller coaster of emotions.  Through the process we met the greatest realtor ever, Rita McGregor (with Harry Norman Realtors) and couldn't be more grateful for the number of times she went to bat for us during this process.  Atlanta friends, she is based in Buckhead...so if you're looking for a savvy, go-getter realtor in the area, she's a great one!  And we also got another lesson in good old fashion patience.  We are humbled that so many people cared enough about us getting this house that we were all able to work together to make it happen.  God has blessed us through this process and to Him we give the glory!

I'm going to have a hay-day decorating the new place...on a budget, of course, and will be posting about the process.  We got rid of most all our furniture when we left Savannah, so it is definitely going to be home decorating from scratch.  Thanks for all the congrats and comments on Facebook!!  We're so excited to have our first place as a family of four...plus two doggies!  Emma Bear the kitty is no longer living with us...she went to a shelter :(  but that's a whole other story for another blog.  Right now, we are just excited about our home!!