Monetary Sensibility

Today, I'm going to discuss a little encounter with a dreadful combination of retardation and the time and space continuum.  I'm sorry if you read the title and were expecting a politically oriented post.  My goal is not now, nor is it ever to neither confuse nor disappoint.

Anyway, yesterday, I received a note from my landlord saying that I had until March 31 to make a decision on whether to re-up my lease or leave.  As a brief aside, I find it laughable that they need two months of lead time before the lease runs out, whereas they give me 16 days to mull the rate increase and tell them.  Anyway, after crunching the numbers, it appears that the landlord seeks a 5.32% rate increase in rent.  None too thrilled with this development, I began pondering options.  One such solution is to buy a house.  This way, instead of paying rent and essentially flushing gobs of moneys down the toilet, I would be paying for something that I would own, and flushing money up the toilet (for lack of a better idea of what the opposite of "down the toilet" is).

Anyway, I contacted a realtor (apparently, that's not a word in the Blogspot dictionary) to discuss meeting to further talk about what is available that would suit my needs.  She mentioned that I would need to call a mortgage company to determine what loan amount I would qualify for, and then she recommended someone to call tomorrow.  After talking a little more about what I'm generally searching for, we parted phonular (another word not in the Blogspot dictionary) ways.

After this, I decided to call a bank that I knew would have its mortgage department open.  A gentleman answered and greeted me, asking what he could do for me.  I replied that I was looking to see what sort of mortgage limits I would be able to get so I could begin searching the online databases tonight to be more prepared for my impending meeting with the realtor.  He then told me, and I quote, "We can't look at your mortgage application till you have a bill of sale."

The rest of the conversation went something like this:

FSG:  Excuse me?
Phone Dude (PD from now on):  We don't do prequalifications.  You have to have the bill of sale before you can apply for a mortgage.
FSG:  Um...Without having some preapproved limit, I will not ever be able to obtain this magical bill of sale.
PD:  I'm sorry.  We can't do that.
FSG:  How does your company manage to make any mortgage loans with that?
PD:  Well, you could buy it and then refinance.
FSG:  Thanks.  I appreciate your time.  Have a great night.


So, to sum up:
1.  I need a qualified mortgage limit to buy a house (or even look at one).
2.  I need to buy a house before I can obtain a qualified mortgage offer.

Am I missing something here?  No wonder, there's such slack in the housing market!


-FSG