The Mortgage People:

I know I haven't been posting as much recently - here is what I have been dealing with in the last week:

Buying a house is very stressful - especially when you can't get a hold of your mortgage broker. What an experience. I will tell you in a brief essay why I hate the mortgage people.

Bank of America how do I NOT love thee - Let me count the ways:

(1) Back in March we thought about the possibility of buying a house through a special mortgage through Bank of America for new Doctors. CD calls and speaks with a women who proceeded to tell us our credit wasn't high enough for the loan. We could try back in a month. So we decide we will rent. Click here for recap of what happened with that.

(2) Back to the drawing board - CD calls Bank of America again speaks to some guy this time. He says I don't know what that women told you but your credit is great! Of course you can be pre-approved. So long story short we're pre-approved. We're heading back to Philly.

(3) Week before we leave we still haven't received our pre-approval letter. Required to bid on properties. Call several times and leave several messages. For some reason it isn't the guy we spoke with's voice mail. Come to find out it is his mother....That's weird...So finally CD calls the main number and speaks to a lady who will fax over our information to the local branch here. Great pre-approval letter in hand! Off to Philly.

(4) The night before we leave there is a message from another women who is the mother of the guy who set us up. Saying that she would now be our contact person and to call her with any concerns. Well yeah we have concerns we can't get a hold of you. CD leaves her a couple messages explaining we're going to be in Philly and to call our cell phone. She never calls.

(5) We bid on our first property and try to contact the women - we need to get things into motion so we can be set when and if our bid is accepted. Still no answer only voice mail. In the meanwhile we need to set up an account with Bank of America so we head over to a branch near by our hotel. The people there are amazed at the service (or lack there of) we have been receiving. They try to help us but it being Friday afternoon there is not much they can do - but we at least have our account set up. I liked them. They also give us the name of a lady we can call who deals with their mortgages.

(6) Back at the hotel and still trying to get in touch with the mortgage lady - still no luck we decide to call the lady Ben dealt with - who was really helpful for him. She answers - Oh my god - a real person. She proceeds to tell Charlie that she can't help us because she is a good friends with the lady who is our contact and as a co-worker didn't want to step on her toes. We explain that we have been a little frustrated because she isn't getting back to us and we are on a tight time table and we have questions we need answered. She told us that she was overwhelmed because her son quit and left her with all these unfinished clients and she will go and find out what is going on but that is the best she can do.

(7) About an hour later (on our way to look at more properties) the lady calls us. Well about time. Answers our questions and tells us that the paperwork we need will be overnighted to us. Great! What a relief!

(8) I wish that were the happy ending however - we do get the Fed-Ex package and paper work and have some questions so we call this lady again. I leave her a message on Monday - CD leaves her a message on Tuesday - no call back - he tries again on Wednesday. We decide enough is enough and call the manager - voice mail...WTF??!!

(9) Finally Wednesday afternoon (late) we get a call from the manager's assistant. She proceeds to tell us that the the women who has been handling our account was in a serious accident and she is going to give us the number of someone else to call. We call her and get our questions answered. She tells us she will call me at work the next morning to lock in our interest rate.

(9) No call at work (mean while the inspection on our house is completed and goes really well). I get home from work (CD is on call) and there is a message form a different lady saying she wants to go over the rates and to call her back. I call and I told her I thought I was getting a call at work. She said the numbers must have gotten mixed up - and that she wasn't at the originally ladies office where our paper work was and if she could call me back in 1/2 hour...She never did call me back.

(10) CD gets home on Friday morning and calls the women and gets voice mail - calls every number we have and gets voice mails - finally he calls back to the women who took over for the accident lady and she took our account back. Locked in our rate and set up the appraisal for the property. Looks like everything is finally falling in to place. It only took dealing with seven different people from that office in North Carolina to get it taken care of. Jesus Christ......