May You Live In Interesting Times

The big news is not that I started my diet again on Monday.

Or that I'm adapting to it well, with no crazy headaches and such.

Or that Julia and I moved a bunch of things to her parents' place for storage.

Or that we've been talking with the people who bought our house so we can coordinate move-out/move-in with them.

Or that I have another batch of stuff almost ready to go up on ebay.

Or that it feels like I haven't gamed in forever!

No, the big news that's making our lives so exciting right now is that the bank, which had previously pre-approved us for a loan for 90% of the value of our home, has now come back in the two-and-a-half weeks before our move to tell us that they'll only do 78%.

Interesting.

We have 10% in cash, but we have to come up with the missing 13% somehow. The banker thinks it's as ridiculous as we do, but he can't change policies that come from a bunch of old white guys in another city. Our families can't really help us. And we don't want to lose the house. (Duh.)

So now we're exploring things with another bank that says they should be able to help us. Of course it's at a higher rate, so it's going to cost us more, but what the hell!

So hopefully, somehow, all of this comes together in the next week or so. Not only because we want the house, but also because as of the 23rd we have no place to live.

Admittedly this whole thing is really pissing me off. We were pre-approved. We'd done everything right. I was assured, not guaranteed, mind you, but assured, that if I found a job that the loan department would be understanding about a couple of periods of unemployment. Julia and I have excellent (better than you, I'd guess) credit scores. We'd never missed a mortgage payment while I was unemployed -- a mortgage payment that was made to the same bank we're talking about now. But no, no. None of that matters. The banks are all overcorrecting because of the ridiculous lending practices they've had over the past decade that finally came back and bit them in the ass. And we get to pay for it with stress, uncertainty, and the possibility that two weeks from now we won't have a place to live.

Awesome, banks! Good work!