Home buying

[Hector]

Agreed, I had the same thing happen to me when I bought my house. Getting the final approval actually took until the day before my 45 days I had to close. It was scary how last minute it got! Every other day they asked for something new after assuring me everything I needed to provide was in. I think the craziest thing they requested was this: they asked for 3 years worth of W2's, ok no problem sent those in. Two days before closing they asked me to get the past 3 years worth of W2's officially from the IRS office. That was nuts! I was 20 at the time and my mom was my co-signed. She literally had to leave work and find a IRS office on her GPS drive 1.5 hours away, and sit in the IRS office for 2 hours to get the paperwork they needed by the end of that day we were not informed of until that day. Whew, it was absolutely insane. Glad I wasn't the only one who had a similar experience. I also got a 10k bonus from the military, and I had to literally go to the bank and request a photo copy of the actual check I deposited proving it was from the military and not gifted to me by someone.

Wow! Lots of formalities. May be the fact that you were just 20 and taking mortgage made them investigate this much.

[bjl584]

There was a thread a while back about paying cash for a house. All of these stories sure does make a strong argument for that strategy.

[excelsior7032]

FICO scores are a joke.... they actually can go up if you file bankruptcy. People ask me all the time how to raise their credit score, and its simple. Pay off charged off credit cards, pay your bills on time, and cut up those credit cards you dont use anymore (and do NOT close the line of credit).