…beyond nice.

I have officially thrown in the financing towel with Bank of America.  About five minutes into the hike yesterday, I got a message from my BofA loan officer asking for still more paperwork and then she mentioned something about qualifying the place as an investment property instead.

I asked her what that would mean if we bought the place as an investment property, because I’ve read that loans for investments always carries a higher interest rate.  Then I asked her how that would affect my writing off the mortgage payment on my income tax. She comes back with, oh, yeah, right, interest is higher.  And shows me new estimates, ONLY AFTER I ASKED, of interest rate that got hiked by nearly one full percent and the closing cost also got hiked by over seven thousand dollars from trying to buy down some interest points.  So, she somehow thought it wasn’t important for me to know that it would cost me many thousand dollars up front + over $150 extra per month in loan payments.  To really take the sting out of all that, she told me I couldn’t be on the loan at all because I don’t have 2 solid years of work history with the exact same place, so oh, hey, I get to pay more for a loan that I can’t even hope to write off, ever.  According to her, if I wanted to be added to the loan, my current income couldn’t be counted, and only my debt would count, which could affect the loan negatively.

Never mind the fact that have absolutely ZERO debt. Really, I checked, I currently have about $900 in credit card charges from this month, which I will pay off completely like all other months.  I even looked at my credit report after she told me I couldn’t be on my own loan to see how I could affect it so badly.  I scored between 724 and 744 between the three major credit reporting agency.  Two of the reports show flawless record, with multiple student loans and car loans paid off with excellent standing and credit card companies that love me long time.  The one low scoring credit report at 724 shows a parking ticket from some privately owned parking lot in collection for $60 (never help sign a car loan for your brother under your own name completely, this has haunted me in strangely creative ways).  Really?  I’m a credit risk because I have good credit rating dating back from 1994, but oh wow, I’m in collection for $60?

I had the cut the hike short so I could return home and start the paperwork with BECU.  I really don’t know why I wasted so much time with BofA, but oh, my steps instantly felt lighter the moment I applied with BECU.  The whole loan thing was really weighing me down.  Usually when I’m doing a really tough hike, I think about things that are frustrating me and channel all that frustration into anger hiking energy.  It’s usually very cathartic.  When I thought about the BofA loan however, it felt like another 50lbs have been dropped on my pack, I couldn’t find any way to channel that frustration, it was just a giant life force sucking boulder.  Bank loans are like the Chinese kryptonite with our questionable income sources.

Gone are the expensive dates at fine dining restaurants.  They have been replaced by romantic hand-in-hand strolls through furniture stores where we ogle all the fine ottomans that we can’t afford.  Is it just my imagination or has Ikea gotten expensive? Perhaps there’s a hidden burning desire to eat PB&J sammiches until I retire, but my eyes only gravitate toward most expensive item in every shop.  I have an inner gold-digger waiting to be released, hissing and beady-eyed chestburster-style.

We came up with a tentative floor floor, I still need to figure out what I want in the office aka my home while in law school.  Perhaps a desk with a lofted bed?  That might inspire too much college-esque feels and I might feel the need to get drunk every night and flash my boobs at the car passing down below.

Here’s the layout:

Financing is still the source of my pain right now, but we did talk to BECU and have something of a backup plan.  It looks like Bank of America will offer us the better rate with lower closing costs hands down.  However, BECU is willing to count income that Bank of America won’t even look at.  Bank of America seems to have very strict rules when it comes to what they are and aren’t willing to count as your income.  An example of this: the boyfriend isn’t part of the whole mortgage thing, because I am a commitment-phobe even at the ripe old age of 35 and I fear that if I sign a mortgage with both our names on it, I will want to RUN!  Worse yet, I might develop some old lady Twilight crush and decorate the whole house with Twilight themed pillows and maybe it will chase him out but before that happens I will put a bullet in my own head, because WTF just happened? So yeah, where was I, oh yeah, so boyfriend, there were talks about maybe putting him on the mortgage as a last ditch effort to add more traceable income to the loan.  He worked as IT in Hawaii, then moved here during the crappiest economy downswing so he was unemployed for 6 months, but is now working for Starbucks as IT.  He’s been there for a year and a half.  Bank of America won’t look at his income because he doesn’t have a full 2 years work history.  Every other bank including BECU said they would be okay with him because he’s been in IT for over 5 years and the short moving/job hunt lapse is understandable.

Tomorrow is more mountaineer training day.  I am looking forward to that.  I skipped last week because I was too weak from not being able to eat solid food for a week, so this week will hurt.  I would prefer the pain of carrying 30% of my body weight up a mountain over thinking about Bank of America financing.  My best friend told me that by doing the mountain climb right before law school, I could probably draw upon it for inspiration when the going gets tough in school.  I can have a personal mantra of, “If I can climb a mountain, I can get through this moment.”  I’m changing that to, “If I can get financing for a condo through Bank of America in the shitty 2011 market, I can do anything.”