Mortgages take time and paperwork…

So my first post on getting a mortgage was on July 22nd. As of today, I should start actually applying for a mortgage.

Yes, that’s right. OVER A MONTH.

It’s not anyone’s fault, nor any incompetence. On the first run through, Charles determined my credit wasn’t good enough (a trip to Romania was a good idea until someone decided the flight should be first class) so I needed to do something about it. Several thousands of dollars later, I started rerunning my credit. I get a statement from my credit card company saying, “Andrew’s credit limit has been raised to ${insert insanely unusually high number here} and his current balance is $0.” I forward said letter to Charles. Charles talks to a company that will act as a go-between — verifying that new information with the credit card company and informing one of those blasted credit bureaus. Some time later, the go-between completes their communication cycle, and tells Charles that my credit score has changed to XYZ.

So we do this once. Then Charles comes back and tells me that one of my scores is too low — BY TWO POINTS. So I have to do the entire routine again.

Between the go-between taking WAY longer than expected, a Florida trip, and laundering money (legally), it’s just taken this long to get to the point where I can actually give Charles paperwork such as W-2s, paystubs, 401k statements, etc., in order to get a mortgage pre-approval started.

So sometime next week I might actually have a mortgage pre-approval so that we can go shopping for a house.