We had spent a frustrating first day here looking at houses. Nothing really matched our criteria and a few of the homes we toured were downright scary. As we started modifying our selections, our wonderful realtor started asking about moving our price point. Could it be done? We had no answer as we were still having trouble getting banks and mortgage companies to return our calls. We would start a conversation with lenders that we had history with, fill out some forms and then be put into some mysterious limbo where no further calls or emails were returned. It had been happening for weeks, as we had started looking into it from Aberdeen. Our realtor finally connected us with someone who laid it all out for us. My credit was poor. Fiona's was decent, but she was hampered by the fact she had no income. In the final equation, the loan we were looking for (and any loan, actually) was just not do-able. We got this nugget of information while touring the first house we thought we might actually like. It did not go over well. We spent the rest of the afternoon chasing banks around and receiving the same refusals. This from people who used to lend 110% of the house price to people with worse financial backgrounds than us.
Apparently the problem was two-fold. One - we no longer live in the US and therefore have no regular debt repayments that can establish us as reliable. Two - we didn't have enough revolving credit history. That item was fixed pronto with a call to our credit card company. Apparently they had transposed some digits in my social security number and our long-established credit card was not showing up on the report. We also found out our old power company was chasing us for an unpaid bill - a few days of power after our old house was sold and we were already in the UK. No time to argue so we paid that as well.
Fixing the first point required more work and us doing something that I find complete and total nonsense. We had to borrow money from the bank and pay it back on monthly installments to re-establish payment pattern. What bollocks. In this insane system a person with no debt and a good income can't borrow money for a mortgage because ... they have no debt! I now hate banks. I was only on semi-friendly terms with them before, but now the gloves are off.
If only the Kentucky Department of Agriculture offered mortgages - those guys have their stuff together!
So we're putting off the home purchase for 18 months or so. No big deal, just immensely frustrating and a giant waste of our time.
That being said we have been productive on another front - knocking off visits to our favorite restaurants, shopping establishments and people.
Pappadeaux for crawdads and crabcakes - done. Whataburger for a #5 special with no tomato and a whatasized fries and coke - done. El Jarrito for the tacos al carbon and a cheese enchilada - done with a side of chips. Yao's for the world's best Chinese food - tonight. Chipotle for a burrito bowl, rice, black beans, carnitas, chili corn, hot salsa, guacamole, cheese, sour cream and lettuce - still to come.
We also descended on Katy Mills Mall like a horde of Visigoths sacking Rome, if Rome were an outlet mall with a Coach store. Come to think of it, it may have worked out better for the Romans if they had a few discount retail outlets to cater to the sophisticated barbarian. Anyway, no store was left undisturbed, the local fled in terror and we now require an additional suitcase for all our plunderings.
The stars also aligned perfectly for us to visit our good friends from Aberdeen, the Stubbs, who have been back in Houston for a little over a year. They built the wonderful and stately Stubbs Manor out in Spring and were kind enough to invite us over for dinner even though they were preparing for a trip to Qatar later in the week.
Side note - they claimed proper pronunciation of the country was "cutter" not "ka-tar". Who thinks they were just having us on?
As always it was great to see Vicki and Bob. We had missed them quite a bit. It was also fortuitous timing in that we got to meet the next generation, in the person of their wonderful little grand-daughter Leina. Had her mother Amanda been a little less watchful I'm certain Fiona and I could have snuck that little doll out in Fiona's handbag.
Tomorrow we drive to San Antonio. We're really looking forward to seeing Ethna and Manny again. Put the kettle on!
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