On
Saturday July 20, I received a letter
from my HSBC loan officer stating that I needed to provide more documents
in order for them to process my loan application. The letter stated that all these items needed
to be addressed or else they couldn't move forward on my loan. The document had
outline a 22 item request list, some of which I had already submitted weeks earlier.
Another of which, I hadn't received the relevant
document from the loan officer to complete. One question asked me to verify
that 15% of my current home was not being used as a home business. I was confused. Why is my loan officer
requesting information that she already received or not provided to me? Furthermore why is she asking
me questions regarding a home business that doesn’t exist? I thought at first
that she may have gotten my file confused with someone else’s. I quickly wrote
her an email asking for her to explain. Of course, I got no response. To her credit, it was Saturday. On Monday
morning, I called her and to my surprise she actually answered the
phone. I asked her about the letter and she immediately feign not having any
idea of what I was referring. I told her about the letter signed by her with
her contact information. Her classic response was, the letter must have
been sent by the processor (underwriter) without her knowledge. Really? I
thought. How unprofessional. After having a minor panic about the short
period of time to send these documents, I have finally completed the task
today. I’m feeling relieved but not overly confident. I’m hoping to get a
commitment letter this week. I stated in an earlier post that I have made
mistakes in this home buying process and one of those mistakes was not shopping
around for a mortgage. However, I can’t say for certain that my experiences would have been different with, Chase, Capital One, etc. Since I have had this
experience, I have been soliciting information from others and have heard
similar horror stories. I have learned that HSBC doesn't have a monopoly on
giving buyers a hard time. My underwriter asked me to submit three years
tax returns while my coworker had to submit four years tax returns. I have been
in contract on this home for two months. But others have taken up six months to
close on their homes. I should consider myself lucky, at least they have not
denied me a loan completely.
When I started this blog a year ago, I was in contract on a two bedroom cooperative in Brooklyn, NY. I was very enthusiastic about getting the property and I started planning my design strategies. A year later after being denied by the coop board for the property, I have taken a bit of a break from my home search. I will still update the blog from time to time. However, I am less enthusiastic about the property search and haven't really seen a coop that grabs my attention like that first apartment did. There are certain things that I do not want to compromise on such as location, price and bedroom space. I haven't become a homeowner just yet but I haven't lost all hope of that happening. It just may take a longer time and I'm ok with that.
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