Let's hope my moobs don't grow icicles today. Later, Box.

Yesterday you could hang coats from my nipples. It was awful.

My employer switched halfway through the year from a system allowing us to carry over vacation days to use-it-or-lose-it. Despite taking 2-1/2 weeks off at the end of the year I still lost a vacation day. :rolleyes:

Goodness. We are paying 5 7/8 for a 30-year fixed (bought the current house four years ago) and figured it was a great rate.

At least it's not supposed to rain today, unlike the next two. The mummers look to be cold and wet.

Good night/afternoon Box, gotta get some sleep...

Wasnt too bad but the realtor and mortgage broker were very misleading when we made the offer since they thought we could get a regular loan by the time we closed.

One thing that shocked me was when the mortgage broker came back to me and said he could qualify us for XXX,XXX loan :eek:. Now I see why there are so many foreclosures because people are borrowing the max and any pay cut or layoff puts them in the swamps real fast.

I hear you. The listing agent wanted to do all sorts of crazy stuff that made both my wife and I and our realtor :rolleyes:. I suppose that is good from a seller's perspective but I tend to avoid people who give me the greasy used car salesman feel, which I got from one of the four lenders that approved us, leading us to pick the company we're going with now.

But yeah, our mortgage guy was telling us that our loan would be no issue and that we were going about this process the right way, and that he is used to having to gripe at people and spend a lot of time explaining to them why they can't borrow so much money. I don't think I'd ever be able to breathe if my mortgage was much bigger than what we're going to be dealing with in this deal. :eek:

Also, people were taking on all sorts of exotic loans such as interest-only loans or loans that reset or had balloon payments, which could put someone in trouble very quickly for the reasons you mention above.

I was under the impression that lenders had tightened requirements, but perhaps this isn't the case, or maybe it is just credit card lenders (:rolleyes:bank unilaterally doubled the interest rate on a card I have held for over 20 years, so I am closing that account).

Good morning Box. Nice and sunny here in NJ, but cold... brrrr!



Same thing happened to Mr.Brit. His "employer" sold his part of the firm out to another mid year. In late October the "new" firm told everyone they were disbanding the carry-over policy and they had to use their remaining vacation days by the end of the year, or lose them. Mr.Brit had about 20 days to use! Was Not Possible due to deadlines, implementations, etc, so he is losing about 10 days. They won't pay them out or allow carryover. Stinks, but nothing can be done.



:eek::eek::eek:

We just closed on our construction loan. It is valid for one year, after which there is a "balloon" payment!!! Thankfully, the bank has already told us they will convert it to a regular mortgage, so really there is no balloon due! Thank goodness.

Another busy morning applying for employment. Who said this is the deadest week of the year to look?

That's a quick closing. People thought I had a quick closing at 8 weeks w/ a request at the 5.5 week point to do it at 6 week. (turned into 13 weeks because of the seller hadn't moved out like they told their relo company)

I've done none of those. I've only been up front in warm weather so no coat except the one time and I was seated in the BF seat 15 minutes before I even saw the first FA.

The mini black angus sirloin burgers were even a winner as a leftover. Have to say the Kings Hawaiian Rolls made them just thast much better, other than the fact it was local grass fed beef.

Yea I know what you mean too, I was pre approved for almost a million, and well....I do ok but I thought they generally the rule was something like 2.5-3x your annual salary is the top end of the loan amount they will do...
I don't have other debt, but still no WAY I could afford to pay my entire salary to a house payment. There are other expenses to a house.

There are laws about that. You should check.

Hmmm! Food for thought.

Interesting that everyone is discussing carry-over vs. use or lose vacation policies. Although we can carry over, I was "encouraged" to work down my vacation balance. Thus, I am on day 2 this week of vacation that got "planned" on Monday.

At least I still have enough carryover vacation to cover the HNL trip in Feb.