[Monday 11/15: 3 miles on treadmill; Friday 11/19: 2 miles on treadmill; Today’s run: 4.32 miles @ Bonita Lakes Park in Meridian, MS]
We had an interesting week last week.
Last weekend I spent some time on the porch project, the trim and siding. I’m slow since I don’t do this kind of thing very much.
I am using the ‘hardie plank’ cementeous board stuff from Lowes.
This week was busy. Monday at lunch time we went and got our #3 covid “booster” shot. And that went OK until Tuesday morning when I had a fever and aches and general not-feel-good ness. So Tuesday I ended up sleeping most of the day. Wednesday I was back to work. Thursday was pretty much normal. Friday we got ourselves packed up. Saturday we drove all day to Meridian, MS where I am right now.
I am to work M-W remotely-remotely from our son’s house. Then we have Thanksgiving with him, and head back home next weekend.
Besides the Thanksgiving visit, we had hoped to do some house hunting on this trip. But our renter, and hoped purchaser, apparently hasn’t accomplished the loan pre-approval so we don’t have a solid basis for starting a purchase ourselves. That may change in the next few days and if it does we will get on with it.
3 replies on “November winding down”
Not that I know specifically, but at my HOA I do the books and have dealt with buyers a couple times and with that their loan departments several times. What I find interesting is that the mortgage outfits are so inconsistent one to another in their forms, processes, and efficiency. Chase was the absolute worse. I had to check a bunch of boxes on their form (they all do that but forms aren’t consistent – Chase form was the longest at 6 pages) and what held them up was our HOA being in litigation (which we weren’t). I had checked “no” for that specific line item but approval was held up several days owing to someone not reading the form response right and inputting my response into their system wrong.
I found that smaller independent loan brokers have higher customer service levels. I think they hustle more when compared to larger outfits. They answer phones and remember who you are. Also, personally, I was working with a smaller brokerage (one person office) when we were buying a few years ago I found out that they could get me a better deal on financing with the bank I was working for vs. the employee discount at same.
Third thing is Fannie Mae vs. Money Store. Our latest condo buyer couldn’t get financing w Fannie but found lender with Money Store and it was fine. From that I am thinking Fannie is more strict with borrowers who have unusual circumstances, if that is the situation with the renter (unusual income streams, etc.).
We have hardie board siding on our place. No real problems so far. Getting it painted next year. The house seems to need it every 10 years because southern sun is brutal on blue tint paint.
I agree with Jonathan on the smaller mortgage brokers being more agile. The big outfits want to do volume business of lots and lots of pretty much the same loan with the minimum number of staff. A smart shopper can usually do better elsewhere.
Hope you have an excellent Thanksgiving holiday. I’m going to take another shot at making cracked wheat bread with my kitchen aid mixer from craigslist. The first try tasted great, but it didn’t rise well. Its amazing what you can learn off YouTube.
Sorry you felt bad after the shot. I got my 3rd shot on a Friday because I expected the crud like you got. But things went OK. I got the pfizer shots. The first two covid shots were OK but then I had the worst reaction I ever had after the second shingle shot. I felt ‘off’ for a few hours after this year’s flu shot but then the 3rd covid did OK. I almost talked the nurse at my doctor into giving me the multi-strain flu shot that they give over 65s but I guess they couldn’t get reimbursed if they did so.