6/17/04

Earlier today I called Sharon’s dad to talk to him about the prequalification process I went through to get a home loan. He had given me the name and phone number of a guy to call to get prequalified and I hadn’t heard anything back from the guy yet so I thought I’d call Sharon’s dad to see if he had talked to the guy recently. The good news is that he had, the bad news is that I don’t qualify. My credit is worse than I thought.

Here’s my story on that. When I was 18 I got a credit card when I opened a checking account. At the time I was in college and had to job. What’s a college kid going to do when he needs money? Charge it. So I did over and over. After I dropped out of college, the loan that was paying my way through school came due and gave me another bill other than the credit card to pay. At some time, I tried to put my balance from the college credit card onto a new card. That didn’t work as the whole balance didn’t transfer over and so I now had two credit cards to pay. Since neither was at it’s limit, I was spending on both. I also got a car that I paid too much for and was too naive to haggle over. I got a five year loan with that and am still paying on it. I’ve also maxed out a K’s Merchandise credit card, a Staples card and have a Sears card.

All of this combined with my natural procrastination and forgetfulness-I actually will forget to pay a bill for a couple of months if not reminded-has made for really shitty credit. It’s for this reason that I can’t qualify for a home loan and now we have to go in a new direction for the house.

Sharon’s dad will be buying us the house, paying for both it and the repairs. During this time, I’ll pay all my bills on time-Sharon will help with this-and also give Sharon’s dad some money for the house. I need to figure out how much I actually owe to each bill and how much I need to pay to get brought up to current status. From the sounds of things when I was talking to Sharon’s dad, I think he’s going to also give me money to get me current on my bills. We’ll do things this way until my credit has been repaired enough to get a loan and at that time I’ll use all the houses equity-after the repairs it’ll be worth about twice as much as when we buy it-and pay off Sharon’s dad and my credit cards bills.

I hope to God that it’ll all work out ok. I just want to be able to start a life with Sharon and Sage that’s not full of worry.