mortgage sparring 101

While I never thought that buying a house would be easy, persay, I never expected to be in the middle of a menage trois of lenders. I'm like the girl that didn't know she just walked into a swinger's party...maybe I'd have been okay with it if I'd have understood what was going on, but all of the sudden being in a tug-of-war for my affection (or commission, as it is)...well, that's going to take some getting used to. 

I suspect the mortgage business has soured in the past 12 months since Bear Stearns tanked and America put out her un-ashed cigarette and gestured with a grimace and fake naivete, "What'd I do?" Since tons of buyers can't even get a loan to buy one of the thousands (millions?) of overstocked homes, it seems as though brokers are in a real pinch here. Which means they want your money. Bad. 

I had a broker that was a friend and co-worker of another very close friend, so I was completely confident this girl wasn't going to screw me into 2038...that's right, when my loan will be complete {insert gag}. Put on your Pig Latin hat and let's call her Endall-kay, for privacy's sake. So things were moving along nicely when my builder decided to jump in the mix and start offering mortgage incentives. So they passed me onto their lender. Already I felt like I was cheating, but I know that it's common to "shop around your loan" so I thought why not. The lender then passed me to an "associate" who I come to realize is a broker from an unconnected business. Meaning, two people are getting commissions now. Red flag.

So Ris-que (Pig Latin, people) then sends me a bid that undercuts Endall-kay. But he also calls me 3 TIMES while I'm at lunch, freaking out saying I have to lock in my rate that minute because oh shit I think the stock market is dropping and rates will rise and what will do if the world caves in and you haven't locked in your rate? Sign here, please. His urgency and faux concern for my interest rate totally irks me, so I send Endall-kay his quote, asking if she'd match it so I could just get rid of him. She does. She points out all the places he was jacking up fees, which totally offset any incentives I was supposedly getting. Red flag. I send a Dear John letter to Ris-que. The builder's lender (stay with me) writes and says he's sure that once the dust settles, he'll be able to undercut her again. I'm sorry, when did "dust settles" become a proper negotiation term? Red flag. I get another email from the builder asking to see my girl's quote. Red flag. Now I'm extra irked, like the same kind of irked I am when I realize I'm out of colby jack cheese. So I blow them off. Sure enough, just like a typical man, the silent treatment works and today I get a final bid from Ris-que saying he's cut his commission in half just to get my business and hopes that I will appreciate the "really great option" he's given me. 

Unfortunately, it kind of is a good option. It's like, a brand new 42" LCD HD TV good option. 

But I just have this female-intuition-vibe that's telling me if he doesn't screw me now, he'll screw me later. I feel like he's somehow going to mortgage roofie me at some point, and what price tag can you put on fear?

So I'm going to sleep on it, because that's how I make big decisions, and then tomorrow I'll follow my gut and decide that my 24" TV gets a pretty good picture after all.