Mortgage Approval: Not a Piece of Cake, Er, Pizza
by Karen Williams | September 16, 2005
Seminole Chronicle
My feller Mark and I decided there wasn't enough stress in our lives, so we would apply for a home mortgage.
See, we stumbled on to a house that we both liked: I, due to the pool and bay windows; he, due to the extra space for tools that he'll need to fix the pool and bay windows.
Two smashed piggy banks later, we determined we didn't have money to buy one lonely hibiscus bush from the property, so we decided to apply for a mortgage.
We anticipated a simple process: Go to the office, tell them how much we needed and convince them we're upstanding citizens. Then we would exit with the cash, including a little extra for pizza.
Not so fast, busters!
First, the company had to know every detail of our financial history, down to the amount squandered on mood rings back in the '70s.
"How much money have you saved for a down payment?" the loan officer queried, after filling out enough paperwork to require a new sawmill in Oregon.
Hello, if we had squirreled money away, we wouldn't need their services.
Through clenched teeth I explained that Mark donates every spare nickel to a mandatory charity known as the Ex-Wives Club. As for me, I have a son who's in law school, and the mere expense of his textbooks keeps me buying my clothes at Rags-R-Us. Next year, son Joel will become a lawyer and pay me back and/or buy himself a Lamborghini. Until then, savings isn't in my vocabulary.
The loan officer then tried to pry into our current income. Mark explained that he is self-employed and knows only that his income is in the "slightly inadequate" category - at least when he tried to buy a TV that takes up three-fourths of his living room wall but could only afford one that takes up half the wall and requires squinting.
She proceeded to run a credit report on both of us, revealing intimate details of our relationships with credit cards and the No-Payments-Till-the-Stuff's-Worn-Out Furniture Mart.
"Uh-oh," the loan officer scowled after performing some calculations. "It appears that your debt-to-income ratio is far greater than what we allow."
Mark and I looked at each other. Who knew we had a debt-to-income ratio. What other odd ratios would they compute? Our height-to-weight ratio? Our IQ-to-frequency-of-dumb-things-we-say ratio?
"C'mon, honey, let's go," I said, grabbing the paper sack that contained my financial records and pizza coupons. "We don't need all this malarkey from Officer Scrutiny here."
"By the way, little missy," I added, "You forgot to give us your company's privacy statement - you know, the one required by the government, without which you get five to 10 years in San Quentin?"
The officer gasped and began to frantically search her files for a disclosure to hand us. We sauntered back to our seats, figuring she just might like our debit-to-income ratio after all.
And she might even chauffeur us to Pizza Hut.
***
Copyright 2005, Karen Williams
