I know I've been quiet. You all probably thought we gave up or got fed up. Truth is that there has been a lot of activity. That I haven't posted about it is largely due to my loss of sense of humor about the less-than-satisfying developments. In the last months, we got ignored by the one and only lender that had been willing to talk to us; reassigned to two different loan officers; then, because of all the time that had passed, had re-submit all the paperwork and applications; only to spend $400 on and wait for weeks for a very disappointing appraisal. In the meantime, Chai and I started disagreeing about how to proceed, mostly due to our very different coping styles for and tolerance levels for stress. I'll spare you the blow-by-blow and let it suffice to say that we ended up in 5 weeks of couples' counseling and briefly diverted to a Plan B (cutting our losses and finding a different house to buy that doesn't have all the gotchas).
I've kept copious notes about the financing saga, which I hope to find time to write up in this blog. But since we are fresh off elections and still have politics in mind, I have a few thoughts about the obstacles that keep people like us from moving to Detroit. (And, by "people like us", I mean, middle class folks who work for a living and have good credit, some savings to put into a home, and a desire for meaningful community involvement that trumps the common sense motivation to pick a house based on its financial investment potential.)
