Oh, come on, don't leave us hanging! Tell us the house story, please!
It's not really that exciting of a story. Though I guess the others weren't exciting either.
I'll start with a different house. Mobile home actually. It was a foreclosure in a rural area. Waited for a price drop then offered something like $18,750 (each time we made an offer, had to bother the bank to get a new letter saying we had that exact amount available...didn't want to let on that we had more, they were nice to accommodate us like that). Well it's a done deal, lady says I can go ahead and switch utilities over, I drop some flooring off at the place so we can get started on it as soon as the contract is actually signed. Well there's a problem with the title (literally, they suddenly realized that they didn't have a title for the mobile home), the real estate agent basically turns on us saying she'll have to report that we've put our stuff on the property (I go back and get the flooring moved, no big deal, but she was being a total b*tch). Bit confused, I mean she said we could even turn the utilities on in our name (we had scheduled the turn-on for a later date, easy enough to cancel, but still). She made it very clear that the house was no longer under contract
Well, that issue was fixed in about a week. She expected us to honor the contract. I said "no, you made it very clear that the prior contract was null and void, I wish to make a new offer." She refused, so I had to contact HER boss and make her do her job. Got the place for ~$17,750 (maybe it was $17.5, I forget the exact number without looking through old paperwork). She was there for the closing and was NOT happy.
Current house. We go with one of those "we'll work with you if you have special circumstances" companies. I check them out, they're not half bad. And we do have special circumstances; we've been living in Australia the past seven years and have virtually zero recent US income (wife just started a travel job so we'd have some paystubs, they paid weekly so we quickly got the number of paystubs they needed). Basic stuff at first, provide tons of documentation (and fix the mistakes they made on paperwork they sent to us), show where every cent in the bank account came from (we had transferred our AUD to USD, so I had to show the AUS account it came from, the transferwise transaction converting it, then the resulting deposit in the current US bank account), etc. Few hiccups but from what I'd read about other people's experiences buying a house and the whole mortgage process, it seemed fairly smooth (we are EXTREMELY on top of things). Fast forward a bit, we're a couple weeks from closing. Mortgage didn't pass underwriting, they don't know why (that's your JOB), but quickly determine that they had submitted an extremely old survey (it's allowed to be 2-3 years old I think, but this was well over a decade old). Someone there dropped the ball big time. They say they'll get it done ASAP. Some back and forth, it drags on, Thursday becomes Friday becomes no later than Monday (the Monday of the week we want to close by). I forget the exact timing, but when it became apparent it was coming down to the wire, I liquidated both our IRAs straight into our checking account. Once it cleared I sent updated documents to the mortgage company showing the new bank balance and where the funds came from (I doubt it was actually needed, but I did it under the guise of "since you want detailed info of where every cent has come from, here you go"). Told them the funds were moved so we could purchase the house in cash in case they didn't get their stuff together in time. Lady freaked out a bit (mortgage company got $0 if we didn't actually get a mortgage with them). Checked prior emails, she wrote this verbatim:
"I know that you were wanting to just pay cash for the home if the deal could not close this week, but I’m not sure if it is a good idea to take all of your money to purchase a home outright. You then put yourself in a position to where if any emergency comes up, you may not be able to help yourself. You might also have to put off making changes/upgrades to the home."
Should note that we had more than was required to purchase the house, so we still had some funds for an emergency (plus, with no mortgage, the amount needed is lower, right?). And of COURSE we needed to immediately upgrade a new (to us) house (admittedly I did cut out a hole to utilize the space under the staircase).
Held firm. They told us about the process they had to follow, that we couldn't rush things, if they got X and Y done by Z then there was a mandatory three day period then we could close the following week. Held firm, said we were closing this Friday regardless. Then we got an email with this exact subject (minus personal info redacted): "FW: Encompass Loan #123456789, 'Name' is ready for Clear to Close by Underwriter". I could tell what was up right away, but played dumb and asked what is the difference between "clear to close" which we require no later than Wednesday, and this "ready to clear to close by underwriter" that you're telling me about? It was obviously a way for them to tell us the magic phrase "clear to close" without actually meaning it.
Wednesday rolls around, we wire the funds to the escrow after making a thousand percent sure that if the mortgage company gave us the actual clear to close by end of business that day, they'd refund all but the deposit. Was pretty nervous until I got confirmation they got the wire (didn't take long). Didn't help that our bank tried to get the account number wrong (maybe almost $200k isn't much for you, but lady, it's nearly all we have!). Don't worry, I always double-check everything (after the near mix-up on their part, I quadruple-checked both what was on their computer and the paperwork that was signed). Well, no clear to close by end of day Wednesday, so we tell the realtor this will be a cash sale (the title company needed one full business day to change everything over, so they had to know by end of Wednesday to have everything ready by Friday).
Of course Thursday morning-ish (late morning, but before lunch) we got the clear to close. Bank didn't bother notifying us (they were correct to not contact us, as we told them this was now a cash sale and they could stop working on the paperwork; the realtor is the one who let us know). Signed the paperwork Friday and started moving in ASAP.
Should probably note that kids and I had been staying at my brother's house with his wife and my mom for nearly three months. My wife had been there about two months longer with the idea to get a job and settled in by the time the rest of us showed up. Nerves were frazzled, and at one point in August I promised that "I'll do whatever I can to get us moved into our own house by the end of the month." The Friday we closed was August 30, waiting until the next week was completely off the table if we had any other option.
Having to start over with our retirement accounts was a big blow, but I'll admit it was nice to give the bank the shaft when they were trying to jerk us around. And don't worry, we dumped a large amount back into the IRAs before our 60 day rollover window closed (we did have to carry a balance on credit cards for a number of months, but eh...they're all paid off now and we're back on track).