Brick Wall.

We have to withdraw our offer.

The bank called Rob on Friday to say they will not finance us for this condo.

At all. 

And the way our lender guy explained it just made me confused and very pissed off.

"He's lucky he didn't call me to tell me that," I said to Rob on the phone, "He would have gotten an earful from me."

I. Was. Pissed.

I didn't understand. We had gotten so far- and for the bank to flat-out say they cannot fund this particular condo?

We called another lender, one who was recommended by our Realtor. He sounded nice, but after some basic calculations, we discovered in order to lend with him (and to any other lender other than Rob's bank), we would have to cough up an extra $4000.

FUCK.

We, nor anyone in our family, have that kind of money. Even if they did, I want to do this on my own. We already owe good 'ol Sallie Mae tons of money; the last thing I want is to be in debt with a family member.

It gets worse. Even if we were to miraculously find an extra four grand, the mortgage payments would not be financially feasible.

We had to cancel our inspection.

We called our Realtor to tell her we needed to withdraw our offer.

This blows.

We decided to call another person in the bank's mortgage department, and Rob had a contact from when he worked in 24-hour banking who was at a branch.

And their mortgage person is awesome! She explained why the bank (and many large banks) will not fund this type of project.

Since the units were originally constructed in the 50's, they have now been converted to condos. Most banks will not fund converted condos unless they have been zoned as condos for three years.

She mentioned she used to work for one of those capital companies who "flip" condos, and it turns out within about a year, many condo owners would run into multiple problems, ones that would not show up in the best inspections (you can't even open up a wall in an inspection).

Once she explained it that way, I wasn't nearly as pissed off.

She then mentioned other reasons why the bank would not fund certain condos.

Afterward, I thought, "Why the fuck didn't the other guy tell us that before we started even looking?!"

I'll tell you why.

He seems to be a nice guy, but we were never on his front burner the whole time we knew him. We gave him the green light to get pre-approved, and he sat on it for a week and a half. 

You know why we know that? We asked someone else how long it takes for people to get credit and income approved, and they said within 24 hours. 

He would have sat on it even longer had we not called him and told him we found a condo we liked and needed that pre-approval letter NOW. 

He sure acted fast once we told him that. It makes me wonder how long he would have sat on it had we not found a property. 

It's supposed to happen like this: Get pre-qualified with lenders, compare loans, get pre-approved with a lender, then shop for homes.

This is how it went with us: prequalification, compare loans, realize Rob's bank is the only way to go (no other lenders can beat his discount), give the lender the green light to get us pre-approved, wait, wait some more, get tired of lending, start looking at houses, find a place, have to put a fire under our lender's ass to even squeak a pre-approval letter out of him.

Needless to say, our Realtor hates him, and we're going with another person at the bank.

So we're going to take a week or two to cool off (and to give our Realtor a break from us- this whole ordeal has made us look very high-maintenance), and then back to the drawing board.

Although this time, thanks to our new lender gal, we'll actually know what the bank will and will not finance.