How Do You Know?

Today we got a phone call from the mortgage department, and found out just SO many errors on their part that we are at our wit's end with them. They no longer can give us a guarantee of a closing date before our contract expires on the house on May 8th. The house has a potential CASH back-up offer, so we can't extend the date any. On Thursday I noticed that they had my social security number wrong, my birthday was wrong by 20 years, and they had not verified my employment prior to this job like they were supposed to. I had sent in W2s from prior employers to help with that, but they lost them. You name it; if there was a way they could mess up, they figured out a way to do it. Well, today they called for not ONE, not TWO, but six different documents. They admitted they had not even sent our application to underwriting yet, even though they told us it was going out by FAX several days ago and by overnight mail last week. The documents they need, they have had 7 weeks to request from us, and now our stuff is loaded behind other belongings in a 26-foot U-Haul. Our bank is 7 hours away, and it's just going to be next to impossible to get the documents they need in the next 5 days, let alone TODAY.

So we are realistically looking at the fact that this bank, this long into the process, isn't going to be able to do the paperwork correctly for us to get a $40,000 loan for a property that appraised at $60,000 with me making more than the median amount for this area. It makes no sense why this could be such a difficult process! Not to mention this is our 5th home purchase, and our last one sold for almost 4 times this loan amount!

We thought about just dropping the house all together, but the rental choices in this area, with 2 pets, don’t look pretty.

And we are paying $40 a day to keep our stuff in the U-Haul so we don't have to unload, load, and unload-which damages our furniture. But we can't do that forever. So another decision is-do we get a storage unit until we know what we are doing?

Also, for Russ to print up brochures and business cards he needs to have a mailing address and phone number. So, should we go get a P.O. Box for the business, and a cell phone billed to the P.O. Box so that Russ has a phone number? If we do that, then he can actually start his new ministry/business. This has been on hold because of waiting to get into the house.

So much to think about!

So we are considering some creative financing options. We can always do a refinance after we get into the house.

Or should we give up this house because these are all roadblocks to warn us not to get it? Or are they just human errors from an incompetent bank?

How does one know what God wants one to do in situations like this? We look for peace, for discernment, for wisdom, for...you name it. That still small voice to tell us which way to go.

We don't want to bust into a closed door, to force an issue just because of our convenience or cost. We want it to be the right thing to do, to be the WISE thing to do. We have looked at all our options. Fulton seems like the right choice-we have peace about it. So, where do we go from here?

Stay tuned as the drama continues. And please pray!