More Real Estate Nonsense

So if you didn't know this already, my mother-in-law is our real estate agent. I asked her about this guy who is ahead of in bidding on this house to find out how he can just now be looking for the bank loan for this house and she explained that he had a deposit down and we really shouldn't have been able to bid on it but this particular agency keeps its options open until the deal is done. I can understand that somewhat. So he put his deposit down but now he has to find out if he'll actually get his bank loan. There's always the chance he won't but come on. That chance has got to be slim. Horrible as it sounds I do find myself hoping it doesn't go through but for all I know this man has a wife just like me and kids like I do and they need this as much as we do. Maybe even more. But I can't help having a part of me that doesn't want to care. This is a competition - bottom line.

Still, I'm not stupid. Chances are he'll get his loan but if he did not, we'd be doing the same thing he's doing now: we'd step up to the plate and play hurry-up-and-wait with the bank as we find out if our loan will be approved. We're only prequalified right now, just like him. So I asked my MIL why can't we do this bank process NOW and IF - big fat IF - he falls through, we'll already be ready to go and maybe even be the preferred bidders if someone else pops up, even if our bid is lower simply because the money is already in place? She said we could.

So I told my husband while we're waiting/still looking, let's get our ducks in a row now. No surprises. If you didn't know you could do that, my friends, you can. The bank will issue you a pre-approved letter - much better than pre-qualified - and it may last for a few months like a pre-qual, but at the end of that time if you're still looking you simply get a new letter. No biggie. So why not do that?

We will. It will certainly make this whole stupid waiting game feel a lot better. And if this falls through, at least we can keep looking with confidence.

Time to eat.