Buying a first home with the Pachecos

If you’ve been following our blog series on Sarah and Fernando Pacheco these past few months, you know they were supposed to have closed on their first home on March 8. Yes … supposed to. At this writing, their closing date has been pushed back, and it could happen today or tomorrow.

Two weeks ago, Fernando went to his lender's office to sign the closing papers and was told that the recording date would be March 6, meaning that's when he would get his keys. A day later, he made his down payment to escrow and waited.

In the week that followed, it seemed like it was a big challenge to get the needed closing papers from the selling lender.

“Every couple days I would get a call about waiting on documents from them, pushing the recording date back. I was certain that the recording date wouldn't be pushed back past our actual closing date of March 8 … but I was proven wrong,” he said last Wednesday. “I’m still waiting on more documents from the selling lender, and now an extension must be filed for a new closing date. When first going into escrow, the closing date was March 4." (He was then told it would be March 11 or 12.)

“I think it's safe to say my spirit is officially broken at this point,” Fernando says. “Now that I've officially invested in this project, these setbacks are a lot more painful.”

From there, the Pachecos had to wait for more extension documents to sign, but wouldn’t have to pay penalties for extending. There’s a silver lining, however: Escrow will be giving the Pachecos a little money back at the end, which sometimeshappens—for various reasons.

“Keep in mind that you should always set expectations really low when you deal with banks,” says realtor Isabella Forster of Keller Williams. “Realtors should set and manage the buyers’ expectations in lender sales, short sales, and foreclosures, as they can often take longer than normal.”

Hopefully this is the last snag in the Pacheco’s adventure. If you have any tips for them, leave them here!