Sometimes living life as an adult is not all its cracked up to be. And frankly, most times, I think kids have it pretty well off and they have no foggy clue.

My wife and I are attempting the purchase of our first piece of property — a house, much needed due to our current residence all but practically falling down around us and our landlord’s reluctance to fix it. Not that I can blame her, the house is a piece of shit and has severe structural issues that would make any attempt at repair cost far above and beyond the value of the house that it would be applied to.

This is coupled with the fact that, because of our individual hobbies of stamping and crafts for my wife and vintage computer collecting and repair for me, we have far outgrown our current living space and feel rather cramped. The house, in general, would be fine for two people who just didn’t have this much shit, but that’s how it is.

So, we’ve looked for a place for some time now. We’ve looked starting here in our current town of Sheffield and in neighboring Hampton for a place that might suit our needs. We’ve looked at pristine conditions and fixer-uppers, one levels and multi-levels, houses styled in the 1970′s and ones styled modern. The sheer differences between houses can sometimes make one stagger in disbelief and yet, we found a pattern to looking at houses. Landa would look at it for its beauty, functionality, and comfort levels, and I would look at it for structural reasons — walls, frame, wiring, heating, pipes. We got a good system going where we could pretty much enter a house and have it picked apart in a half hour or so.

So finally one day this house comes up on a listing here in Sheffield and we schedule a peep. The first showing was by a realtor we really didn’t like, so although we liked the house, we decided not to use the realtor again. So, we called another realtor of ours from Staley Real Estate in Hampton, Kurt, and asked him to show us the house. Thankfully, he did. Kurt had been the one realtor that was constantly on the lookout for houses for us and paid attention to what we liked.

We looked at it again and liked it much better the second time around, so we decided to bid on it and take the leap, pending finding financing for it. A counter offer and we accepted. Then the fun…or not fun…began.

Whoever thinks that buying a house is fun is on seriously pure crack. Somedays, I’d rather have my fingernails removed with a spoon.

We went to the bank in Hampton to talk to a loan officer about getting financing and he decided to try us as a perfect candidate (so he said) with a relationship they are exploring with Sands Mortgage, a mortgage broker. So we submitted a financing application and waited to be approved.

That came back with 2 offers of financing, both which were pretty decent — 90% or 100% financing. Good deal. We hadn’t really planned for very long on buying a house so we didn’t have anything really saved up except enough to cover closing costs, so a 100% financing deal sounded pretty good to us and we signed off on that one and got the ball rolling.

Over the next few days, I got Kent paystubs and W-2 forms and photo ID and slivers of DNA and I don’t know what else, but enough to prove that I was real and had a job and didn’t live in a cardboard box.

And so closing was set for April 10th.

And we waited.

And got a call probably around the 3rd. The closing date would need to be changed, Kurt said, because the sellers couldn’t get into their new house and wanted to get it carpeted and painted before having to move in. Fair enough, we could understand, so we were told it’d be sometime around the 14th.

A callback a day or so later and now it had moved to the 15th because the mortgage company wouldn’t be ready till then.

A few more days, and another setback. The mortgage company didn’t have the paperwork done, some sort of miscommunication with various things and the bank and…well, I really don’t know. But Kurt seemed ok with it so we were, too. The closing was rescheduled for the 21st to make sure we could have it done on that day and wouldn’t have to change the date again.

So, here comes the morning of the 21st. I went to work for the morning and came home at noon to get a call from Kent. “Sands seems to think it won’t happen today.” What? Why not? “They have some things they need yet.” He suggested I call Sands and talk to them about it. I suggested that my realtor was the more likely choice to call, and did so.

Kurt’s expression over the phone was appropriate, at least. “WHAT!?!” He had me hang up and called me back after making a few phone calls to appropriate sources. Seems Sands lender had come up with some stipulations that had to be met yet. Kurt and I decided together to meet in at the bank at 2pm to sort what the hell was going on, as by this time, we’re both confused and pissed.

We get in there and it turns out they need an amended purchase agreement and my last Simple IRA statement. Well, ok, not a problem…but why now? Why not earlier? This should have been done AGES ago!

No clue. No damn clue anywhere. Call Sands and our account has been passed from a guy named Jordan to a girl named Janell. Jordan had assured Kurt on Friday that everything was kosher and we were set to close on Monday, no stips, no problems. Then suddenly not only do they have stips, the papework is incomplete???

And on top of that, we find that the closing will not be until Friday of this week (25th) or possibly until Monday (28th). By this point the sellers are into their new house and all they have from us is our earnet deposit ($300) — we HAVE to imagine they are getting pissed. Besides that, we had planned to get into the house by Tuesday morning, buy paint, and get moving on things. While we’re not rushed to get out (May 1st is our deadline so far), we want to move on things so we won’t be doing them for ages to come.

So, we ask what to do. The decision is made to go to Abbott’s Realty, the seller’s realtor, and talk with them about possibly offering a larger earnet deposit in exchange for being allowed to take posession and start doing some work. The woman there, Kathy, is a great girl and has worked with us before. Her statement about the whole situation? “Bullshit.” Yup. You said it. She said she’d talk to the sellers as they were likely to be very understanding as they had gone through the same thing just the week before.

So Kurt calls later that afternoon while I have gone back to work and lets us know that the sellers were fine with us going in as long as we signed a form saying we absolved them of liability in case of accident. No problem there. He said he’d be by at 9:30am. After this call I get an email from the director of operations saying she had received a call from Sands about my employment status. Well, that’s nice, but again…isn’t this something that should have happened ages ago? I fax in the copy of my IRA statements.

Kurt shows up around 9:45ish or so and has us sign off and we get a ring with three keys on it. Cool. So, we head off with our friend Brenda who has come from Virginia to see us to take a look around and get things started.

Get a look around in the house, turn up the heat, and head to town to get supplies. $145 later and we have 4 gallons of paint, brushes, rollers, pans, and plastic to get going on redecorating in our own image.

By this time, it was time for me to head back to work (having only taken a morning off) and I went. Got a call during the afternoon from Sands, however, now asking about my credit card management program.

About a year ago I decided that my credit cards had screwed me in the ass long enough and it was high time to take care of them permanently, so I contacted Take Charge America, a non-profit credit counseling organization, who then set me up with an account and did all the negotiating with my credit card companies to get me nice, low rates, bring my accounts current, and set up a repayment plan. The people there are SUPER nice, extremely helpful, and always out for your better good instead of just theirs. Wonderful experience with them so far. I make a monthly payment to them which includes a small fee for their services and the money is divided up by them to the various cards and paid on time. Great system, works wonders, and is helping me get rid of my unsecured debt quickly.

So, you’d think they’d see this and go, “Oh, good, he’s taking care of his unsecured debt in a responsible manner. Made some mistakes but figuring it out. Good deal.” Unfortunately, that’s not how they look at it; they see it as a failure of the person, credit-wise.

So, I got Janell the contact information for TCA and had her call them to find out the details of my program and try to give the lender information about my participation that would make them happy.

And that’s where we sit. I haven’t heard back from Janell yet, although she’s an extremely nice and friendly person, so I’m hoping for something good. But I don’t know. I know that lenders can be really touchy about such things and that’s why I originally applied for this financing and made the purchase agreement with the stipulation of getting financing; I wanted to make sure this would all fly through before committing.

However, that’s not how it worked and now I’m stuck in a very rock hard place. I can’t back out of the deal because if I did, the sellers could demand and sue for full payment and would, in all liklihood, win. Then I’d have a bill w/o a house. If I can’t get financing at these rates, I may have to bend over and take it up the tailpipe with a higher rate, higher payment, and overall headache by financing somewhere else or through the bank itself, if they’ll even do anything.

And so my stomach is in knots and has been all day and will likely be like that until I hear better news about the financing. It’s like a constant cramp and it hurts and I’m agitated and upset. I’ve been going through Tums like candy and I’m cranky as all hell. There is a LOT riding on this, especially concerning my financial future.

And it’s not like we were just flushed with money to start with in this project, otherwise I would have simply taken a traditional bank loan, put 20% down, and walked out with a few pieces of paper and a new house. But I’m a first-time home buyer with moderate credit and little cash and I’m getting screwed in every known position in the universe. If it gets screwed up, I end up sued and penniless and facing huge payments and fines. Even if it resolves itself, I am still going to have to struggle with a mortgage payment, insurance, utilities, repairs, etc.

I am an adult and I live in the adult world, working an adult job and accepting adult responsibilities, but can’t a guy get a break once in a while? Lately every door is closed, every window has bars, every path has weeds. Nothing is won easily, we cannot get anything for ourselves without bending over backwards until bones crack, muscles shred, and spinal cords are turned into quivering goo. I swear whatever I signed up for as a kid, I didn’t sign up for this.

Buying a house SUCKS. I highly recommend against it if you can manage. If you have to, make sure you have the entire amount in cash, walk up, and pay for it in FUCKING QUARTERS.

UPDATE: Finally after much runaround, we closed on the property on April 25th, 15 days after the original closing date. Everything went very smooth at the end, surprisingly, and closing costs were less than I had anticipated, so…we ended up good in the end. The process still sucks, though.