The WORST Mortgage EVER!!
The WORST Mortgage Experience Ever?

Mr. and Mrs. First Time Home Buyer…the Newly Weds!

This story surrounds a poor fellow and his new wife that were pre-approved to buy a new home from their local bank branch. The very young, about 20 years of age or so as the client puts it, but very polite loan officer sent them on their way with an approval for around the $300k mark – after a short get together in her office.

I forgot to mention – this took place back in the “Bidding War” Days in 2007 when the market was really hopping…in REGINA, SK. Here, in point form is what happened:

- Pre-approval with local branch (with little Ms. Mortgage Specialist): Approximately $300k

- House hunting for 2 – 3 weeks

- Found several houses they loved

- Put in multiple offers (even with bids above asking price) and none of them were accepted.

The Real Estate Agent told them it was because they kept putting in “Conditions of Finance”. The ALL POWERFUL AND ALL EDUCATED Real Estate Agent (…ummm, in case you missed it that there is sarcasm) convinced the young couple to submit their next offer above asking price with NO Conditions…No Home Inspection, No Gas Line Locate, No FINANCING Conditions, etc. - So…they did just that. They found a house listed for $235k and at their Real Estate Agent’s advice, and the comfort of knowing they were Pre-approved at their Trust Worthy Bank…they put in an offer for $280,000.00 with No Conditions.

-Their offer was accepted!! DUH!

- A large deposit was put down on the home.

- Happy to have finally found a home and have their offer accepted, they went back to local branch to see the loan officer.

- Wouldn’t you know it…the young fresh faced gal was gone…no longer working at the Bank.

- No Problem! The clients were simply introduced to a new loan officer!

- New Loan officer looked but couldn’t find the Pre-Approval…so took a new application…a formality they were told.

- DENIED! NO MORTGAGE FOR YOU! (Guess they shouldn’t have asked for any Bread…hahaha – good old Seinfeld references…they never get old!)

- WHY you ask? Well, it turns out that the husband had an “over draft” on his Account with a small un-paid balance (about $200.00 according to the client) from when he was a Student attending university in Saskatoon in 2003. It had evolved from simply being an over draft and was turned in to an automatic DEFAULTED LOAN, and was sent to a 3rd party Collection Agency for recovery! It was never recovered –

 as he had never been made aware of it he says. Before he left the Bank that day, he paid it off.

- But that’s not all…the original loan officer (you remember her…the 20 year old Mortgage Specialist with YEARS of Home ownership under her belt and plenty of financial experience….you guessed it, more sarcasm) she failed to SEE this as she apparently looked at an old credit report that was on file rather than pulling a current one! GASP!

- “The Hits Just Keep On Coming”…the clients had borrowed their down payment from their parents – and had used most of it for the deposit.

- After leaving the bank, they immediately contacted their most trusted Real Estate Agent to get him to stop the deal. He said they would “forfeit their deposit and could be taken to court for failing to hold up their purchase agreement and for causing the Seller’s unnecessary hardship for taking their home off the market! “

- Unless they could come up with some way to get new financing arrangements. FYI…Only 1 day had lapsed (a Friday at that)…imagine the hardship of those poor seller’s in the midst of a HOT Market with Multiple Offers over the listing price coming in on every home on the market…my heart breaks for them.

- Moving on, the Real Estate Agent scolded Mr. and Mrs. Newlywed for “wasting his time and for coming to him with a FAKE approval.” -

 You think it can’t get any worse don’t you…well it does

– they told the Agent they were not happy being scolded like children and they were going to use someone else…”Not So FAST!”

– they had signed a Buyer’s agreement…they were over a barrel

– they were obligated to complete the sale with him.

- The clients, already having borrowed money from their parents, told them the story…they had no other options; they asked their parents for their help. LUCKILY, there is a happy ending

– the parents had worked with me (Jason) before I opened FOCUS and they called me on my cell phone to see what I could do, if anything. To answer your question, “YES”, I saved the day.

It was the Saturday of the Labour Day weekend when I took the call

– for those of you who know me…you would be right to assume I was sitting in my boat-fishing…and enjoying a cold and frosty beverage (once again, I will say no more – lest I incriminate myself!). I spoke to the parents and listened to the story. It sounded fishy to me (yes – I admit it – that poorly placed pun was definitely intended!).

I made arrangements to meet with the clients the following morning. On the following Sunday, I got up – drove back to the city (in my hot rod Plymouth Breeze!!) and I met with the kids and their parents.

Well of course they came to FOCUS!! Did you really think it would have ended any other way? Come on…it’s no secret – we are pretty much the best there is at what we do! In the end, I managed to complete the transaction for them. It was really quite simple. They even got a better rate than their Bank had pre-approved them for!

So, how did I do it? Like I said, it was really quite simple.

First, I know the Mortgage Rules.

Secondly, I know what my lenders will and won’t look at.

Third, I knew I could set up a contingency for the Parents to buy the house as a 2nd home if necessary.

Lastly, and perhaps most important, I used a little thing I like to refer to as “COMMON SENSE”. It was painfully obvious that Mr. Newlyweds past transgression was an isolated event. I simply explained it to the lender – and the rest is history. That’s all for today!

check out the TRUSTED in the REGINA MORTGAGE category ...they are your REGINA MORTGAGE EXPERTS!

www.trustedregina.com is adding new business weekly as we continue serving YOU the public.

Another one of those great businesses to join the Regina Directory of Excellence is Worby Wealth Management...the first TRUSTED REGINA FINANCIAL ADVISOR to be featured on the REGINA DIRECTORY ..lets tell you all about Chris Worby...and why he deserves the Thumbs up! 

Choosing Worby Wealth Management to help you plan and live your dreams means you have someone who sees the person behind the numbers. Chris Worby is the kind of financial guy who knows the math behind investing but who recognizes that understanding the people he deals with is the real key to being a successful financial planner. Chris believes that clients should have more than a 'Hi' and 'Thank You' and a bunch of copies of paperwork after meeting, rather that there should be a true consideration of their clients' goals and how to achieve them...the paperwork is the formal part! Chris has been in the REGINA Financial Services industry since 2001..,..just in time for 9/11, accounting scandals like Worldcom and Enron, and the end of the dot com bust so you know you are working with someone who has seen the rise and fall of the financial markets. He came along this profession the old fashioned way as his both his Dad and Grandfather were in the business making him a 3rd generation financial planner.

As one of TRUSTED REGINA's FINANCIAL ADVISORS Chris also gives actual advice...meaning that he will listen and provide alternatives but he that he ultimately strives to give sound recommendations he can stand behind. Speaking of standing behind, he also doesn't bring just any financial product or manager in front of his clients, he takes the time to consider each one thoughtfully and determine if its a solid option.

When we spoke with Chris' clients in the verification process, the feedback was impressive, click here to read what they had to say. The general consensus is proof that Chris does take the time to know his clients and that he cares as much as they do about their dreams. And really, you couldn't ask for more than that in a TRUSTED REGINA FINANCIAL PLANNER, could you?

Cardbored?: Using Eco Friendly Moving Boxes vs Cardboard 

People move. Once every five years, on average, we gather every single thing we own and we pack it up, transport it and unpack it somewhere else, making home in a new place. The status quo as you read this, is to do all that packing and transporting with cardboard boxes. Whether you find them behind a liquor store or buy them brand new, it’s a disposable paper product, that sooner, rather than later, ends up as waste. (yes yes, they can be recycled, but just wait, it’s not so simple. we’ll address this directly in a future post.)

Try sourcing Eco Friendly Boxes  take sturdy, stackable plastic boxes and rent them out in whichever quantity and for whatever duration is required to make the move. So what’s the difference? It’s simple: reuse. 400 times !!! Cardboard averages just less than two uses, and is virtually useless after 5 or, at best, 10 times around the block. But hey, it’s also obvious that plastic requires way more energy to produce than a good old flimsy cardboard job. Bingo, 100% correct. It takes approximately 8x more energy to produce an eco box than it would to produce a cardboard box of equivalent capacity. What that number means is that once an eco box has been used eight times, every additional use does not require the input of additional material resources. There's 392 uses left to go and 392 cardboard boxes that don't need to be made.

So to be clear, we’re not saying everyone should buy ECO moving boxes nd keep their own in their garage. They may reuse them a few times, but that would have a higher impact than owning some cardboard. The idea is that you take a durable product and facilitate its shared use as moving boxes by the community at large. So what’s the actual impact of cardboard? And what do we save by using eco friendly moving boxes? We’ll talk about what we’ve done so far in the last three years, but we’ll also visualize the bigger picture too, what impact it will have when Eco Boxes becomes status quo. So far, since one eco box suppplier (FrogBox moving boxes) currently in circulation have been used over 250,000 times. This means 223 Metric Tonnes of cardboard were not used. And 587 MTCE (Metric Tonnes Carbon Equivalent) avoided in waste and production...for example packing tape,  the tape that holds those boxes together accounts for an uncertain but more toxic portion of the footprint of the box and cannot be recycled.

And so what does that 587 MTCE (CO2) number mean?

◦ It’s equivalent to one car driving 1,920,000 kilometers (which is five one way trips to the moon [or two and a half round trips, but that leaves you stuck on the moon, and also, what road are you driving on?])!

◦ Which is the same as 60 cars doing 32,000 kms.

◦ Or 190 individual people not flying to New York from Vancouver (planes use a lot of fuel).

◦ Or powering 73 avg North American homes for a whole year!

Small potatoes? Yeah, we’re not the big fry yet, but so that’s where things look interesting. 55 million people move every year in the USA and Canada and that means 1.9 billion boxes and as much as 271,662 MTCE assuming all cardboard boxes are actually used twice (another future post in the works here). And just to toot the horn: let’s mention that FrogBox moving boxes are strong, sport a waterproof tub design (lids attached!), have handles and don’t need to be taped together or broken down when you’re done.

Which all, ahem, saves you time. Time is still important too, right?.

Stay Trusted my friends ..