Anna May & Greg Jones, REALTORS

Newer homes are nice but to me, the neighborhoods often don’t have that warm, welcome feel to them. The trees are sparse and dinky and these neighborhoods can be way too quiet from folks working all day and night to pay for them.

I can think of a couple “newer” neighborhoods in town that cause me to feel like I’m entering the Twilight Zone.

There’s nothing like a well-established neighborhood with some history to them. Folks who’ve lived there for decades, neighbors who watch out for each other, folks with children and grandchildren who’ve lived there and often come back to visit…

…and TREES! Big, beautiful, mature trees!

June 3rd UPDATE: I did balance my checkbook by the end of last month and organized my tax paperwork to file by October, which is the new filing deadling due to the extension I requested. Progress! 

Regarding the Loan Modification Race between me and my colleague:

By now, my colleague and I both have been sent the paperwork from our bank for a loan modification. We’re both sitting on the paperwork and here’s why:

Personally, I have my doubts about “qualifying”. My gut tells me that since my colleague and I both have reserves, the bank will not consider us as experiencing a financial hardship.

There are a couple things I’d like to do by the end of the month anyway, before I turn in my Loan Mod paperwork. 1) Finish filing my taxes from last year and 2) balance my checkbook.

Hold me accountable!

What better way to learn what a customer/client has to endure than to roll up my sleeves and explore the situation myself?

This week I decided to go through the process of exploring a loan modification on my mortgage just as a colleague of mine is doing. We both have Bank of America loans. My colleague and I are 4 days apart from when we made initial phone calls to our bank. The race is on!

After being transferred several times, here are a few of the questions I was asked by my bank:

Bank rep: “What is your social security number?”

Me: “Same as it was the last few times I gave it to you.”

Bank rep: (Silence. I relented and gave it to him again.)

Bank rep: “Are you behind on your mortgage payments?”

Me: “No. I answered that question already. Twice.”

Bank rep: “Is your net worth more than a million dollars?”

Me: “No! Would I be calling you if I was worth that much?”

Bank rep: “What is your ethnicity? You don’t have to answer ma’am.”

Me: “Green!”

Bank rep: “Irish?”

Me: “No! I wish I HAD more green! Dollars! Green dollars!”

(My colleagues in the office are snickering. I tried not to let the bank rep hear me laughing too.)

Bank rep: “What is a good date of birth for you?”

Me: “Are you kidding?”

Bank rep: (silent)

Me: “Your records should reflect my date of birth.”

Me: (I’m feeling sorry for the bank rep — DOB given.)

(Colleagues still snickering as they overhear my conversation.)

Bank rep: “Will you authorize Bank of America to run a credit check to ensure that you have not recently made any large purchases?”

Me: “I wouldn’t be that stupid!”

Bank rep: “Do you have several months of reserves to pay for housing expenses?”

Me: “Yes.” (This guy doesn’t sympathize with me, I can tell. This is why I never bothered until now to pursue a loan mod.)

Bank rep: “Have you tried to do a short sale?”

Me: “I don’t want to sell. Right now I’m pursuing a loan modification with you.”

The bank rep apologized about the government questions (I wondered what country I was transferred to — the bank rep had an accent.) He said the paperwork would be Fedex’d to me.

(They can afford to Fedex me the paperwork?)

Will keep you posted…