portland

homeowner

After a long and agonizing process, I became a homeowner on Friday. Once I get all the moving boxes out of the way, I am going to take some pictures and post them. It’s a big industrial loft with hardwood floors and super high ceilings. I have large window doors that lead one onto a roof, which I am probably not supposed to be on.  There’s also a club in near proximity, so one can listen to a variety of music while trying to fall asleep. Note to self, check out the back of the building next time around.

Going through this process has taught me a few things.

1. There are too many people involved in the process of buying and selling a
   house. Communication is too often an afterthought and blame is easily pushed
   on some other party involved. In the end, it’s always the buyer and seller who
   carry the consequences. For example, the reason my first mortgage fell
   through was because my broker didn’t properly communicate with my lender.
   The second mortgage fell through because my agent didn’t properly
   communicate with my broker.
2. People don’t double-check their work. Maybe because there are so many
   parties involved, some assume that they don’t have to double-check their
   work. Example, if my second broker had double-checked the loan documents
   prior to closing (as I had asked), I wouldn’t have to deal with a three-year
   pre-payment penalty on my mortgage now.
3. A lot of real estate people are good sales people, which doesn’t help the
   customer from a service perspective. It appears that everybody in the
   process is somehow compensated by commission. They get paid if things close,
   not if closes according to the customer’s needs. Quality control isn’t
   necessarily the greatest concern of someone who’s working on some sort of
   sales commission. There are too many salesmen and too few workers in the
   real estate industry.

The Real Estate business is still a great business opportunity. Maybe not just for the guy sells insurance, but rather for the fellow who has been proofreading the policies.

With the being said, I need to thank my agent Scott without who I would have quit the process after the second mortgage fell through. Thank you Tere for finally getting the loan wrapped up. Third time’s a charme. Last but not least, thanks to Brianna, my first broker. Even though she didn’t have any luck in closing those first two mortgages, nobody worked harder throughout this process than Brianna.