Weekly Update

Status from the bank:

• The file is still in the "prescreening" process,
• we have to have all the documents updated and resubmitted again by next Thursday (the same day the bank can post the Notice of Trustee's Sale, giving us 90 days, if they're paying attention),
• and if any documents are deemed "missing" when they finally get around to looking at the file they WILL NOT discuss it with our attorney/negotiator but instead will snail-mail us a request for the information (and in all likelihood move our file back to the bottom of the stack).

Response from our negotiator concerning the bank and the 90 day mark looming, when the buyers can walk:

• "They know and don't care."

Lovely. 

On a positive note, it looks like we'll be able to move out at a leisurely pace in January since the bank appears to want to drag this out, or foreclose - both options give us time, I suppose.  We're meeting again with the landlord of the new place tonight to put in the deposit, go over paperwork, etc.  Oh, and we're car shopping this weekend.  The only hope we have for our budget to fit rent and childcare at the same time is to eliminate the car payment.  So we have a small lump-sum of cash with which to find a suitable replacement, and will either trade my beloved little car in on it or sell it private party.  With my brother's help, I'm hoping to have something "new" in the driveway by the end of the weekend so that we can get going on unloading my car if we don't trade.  It's been a good little car; I should have named it.......... at any rate, wish us luck!

Home Sweet Home

Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,

Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.

-John Howard Payne

We have found it, the place that we will soon call home.  For months we've been debating on when and where to move, and we could never really agree.  Last week, however, we both talked again and decided that it's almost time.  Almost time to say good-bye to what used to be our sanctuary and has lately become...I don't know.  I almost said "prison," but that seems a bit melodramatic.  It's more that it's become...nothing on a good day, and a salty salve on an open wound on a bad day.  We decided that we will get through the holidays and move right after the first of the year, no matter what happens with the bank in the next six weeks.  So we began the search....

...and yesterday, we found THE place.  When Mr. Four Walls and I walked through it, we both new it could most definitely be home for us.  Don't get me wrong, it's not our dream home - partly due to the fact that we will go from three toilets to (gulp!) one.  Not wanting to be rash, we looked at a couple of other places and came home to think, pray, and talk.  Really, we're six weeks out from the New Year, so we have time to be sure.  However, we fairly quickly and easily agreed that we had found our new place.

Tonight we took the kids to see it, and they didn't want to leave.  Peanut decided that the handle on the oven door resembled a monkey bar, so that's a habit we're going to have to break, but other than that (and the lone toilet....) it suits us just fine.  The owner even came down on the rent by $125 per month as we were talking to him.  Sweet!  It's the right mix of down-grading and up-grading, simplicity and style, budget-consciousness and sanity-saving.  There are "fun" projects for Mr. Four Walls towards which the landlord eagerly gave his blessing, and the girls are excited to live closer to some friends whom they rarely get to see.

As we drove across town back towards our...non-home, I almost cried.  In fact, when the owner was walking us out and let us know how happy he was that we called him back because he knew that we were the right people for the place, I wanted to hug him.  I didn't because that might have been a bit awkward, but the thought crossed my mind.  Mr. Four Walls drove the dark, winding road back to the place that we will soon leave, and it hit me: for the past six months or so, I have felt homeless.  Not homeless like I sleep in a doorway and scrounge for a meal, but Transient. Unsettled. Insecure.

That feeling is gone just like that.  Anxiety is giving way - for this evening anyway - to anticipation.  And these four walls, a roof, a door, some windows that once sheltered us so sweetly will soon give way to another set, from whose warm interior our family's laughter, joy, and hope for our future will soon pour.

Weekly Update

Here is the weekly update we've just received on our short-sale process:  "The file is still in prescreening waiting to be reviewed by a processor before moving onto a negotiator."

Tick-tock.  Tick-tock. 

I can hear it.  I'm sure the buyers can hear it, too.  It doesn't appear, however, that the bank can hear it.

What the heck?!

The ever-informative weekly update from the negotiator just showed up a few moments ago in my e-mail inbox:

     "...the file is in the prescreening phase and it could wait to be fully reviewed there for up to 60 days before moving on to a processor. "

Prescreening phase????  I have pretty much no idea what this means.  At first read it appears to me that it could be another 60 days before the bank actually looks at the file to start the process of valuing the property, counter-offering, rejecting the whole thing, etc.  By that point, the purchase and sale agreement will have expired, and the buyers, if they have grown tired of the wait, could very easliy be moved on to the next deal.


So who knows.  At the very least it's looking more likely that we'll get another Christmas in the house.  It'll be a bitter sweet one, though.