Thursday began with the call from Quicken Loans/Rocket Mortgage telling me, coolly, that they were not going to be able to close on our loan after all. For six weeks, we had been “conditionally approved” and now, less than 48 hours from our flight to Maine for the closing, they were backing out.
The woman on the other end of the line introduced herself as Megan, a name that sounded remarkably innocuous for the news she was delivering. If you’re going to have a position in your company for someone whose sole purpose is to rip the rug out from under people at the last minute, it seems you would scour through the applications and resumes for someone with a name like Helga, or Edwina, or something harsh-sounding. Jacosta. It wouldn’t matter what this person’s qualifications were prior to hiring…just the sound of their name on the phone would strike a note of apprehension in the person receiving the call, and then the news wouldn’t come as a total shock. You can’t expect people to prepare themselves to be emotionally eviscerated by someone named Megan. It was just cruel.
Perhaps because I was not able to prepare myself for this, I didn’t actually believe it was real. Fumbling for words that sounded in any way adult-ish in this moment, I asked, “Why? What happened today, after six weeks of being approved?”
“I do understand your concerns,” Megan said, in a voice that said, this part is scripted. Most of my job is scripted. “Now that we finally have the appraisal, we just aren’t going to be able to close."
“But…we're flying to Maine on Saturday. We're supposed to close on Monday morning.” I knew I sounded ridiculous…pitiful…grasping. I was determined not to cry in front of Megan.
“I do understand your concerns,” Megan repeated, indicating that she did not, in fact, understand my concerns. Actually understanding was not part of her script. “Let me see if I can connect you to someone who can help you.”
And then Megan was gone, and I was listening to an on-hold message that was far too loud in comparison with the live-attendant volume. A cheery man expressed with overblown sincerity that Quicken Loans was dedicated to helping men and women just like me to achieve the American dream…except he was a little late in his reassurances. Megan had already made that clear. I listened to this cheery man fully express his American Dream promise twice through and he was beginning a third oration when he was cut off.
“Hello, Mrs. Bryant, my name is Kelly, and I’m a customer relations agent. It sounds like you’re having some difficulty.”
Kelly. How could I trust a Kelly at this point? Where was my Helga, who would tell it to me straight?
“Hi, Kelly,” I began, having no idea how this sentence would end, “I’m being told that, here in the proverbial eleventh hour—more like the twelfth hour—our loan is being rejected. We’ve been conditionally approved for six weeks. You guys have every piece of paper that defines every aspect of our life. We fly to Maine on Saturday and are set to close on Monday. What could possibly have happened?”
Before she could begin her answer, I started my new line of defense. “Megan said it was something in the appraisal, but I’ve read every page of the appraisal, and it shows that the property appraises for eight thousand more than the asking price, so how can that be a problem?”
“I do understand your concerns, Mrs. Bryant,” (oh boy) “But it appears that the Executive Leadership is worried about the accessibility of the property. It looks like it can only be reached…by a boat?”
That sentence had begun as a statement, and ended as a question. I felt like Kelly had been kind of thrown in here without all the information, and now she was needing for me to explain to her why her company was rejecting me.
“It’s an island,” I said, knowing I sounded patronizing. “It’s always been an island. The address is Number One, Serenity Island. It’s an island.”
Kelly didn’t answer right away, so I continued, trying to sound less condescending. “But it’s so close to the mainland that at low tide, you can literally just walk out there. Twice a day, there’s about a three hour window when you can just walk across.”
I was actually surprised at how confident I sounded in this explanation. Obviously, we had never been there. I had never even been in Maine, and Roger was only there as a child. We had never knowingly experienced low tide, and we had never walked across to Serenity Island or any island. We knew these things from photographs and reports in the real estate listing, and from stories we could read online about people who lived on islands close enough to the shore to walk at low tide. We had studied these things so thoroughly over the past two months that I felt like I had been there…and this is where the confidence in my voice came from. In that moment, that confidence was all I had.
Kelly returned to her script. “The Executive Leadership is concerned about accessibility because, in times of hardship, people tend to default on a second mortgage, and the accessibility of this property might make it difficult to resell.”
I experienced a moment of mental gymnastics. This was like a child’s dot-to-dot puzzle that had just completely abandoned the original picture and added random dots up all over the page and then rapidly connected them with no interest in creating a real image.
I heard the patronizing tone creep back into my voice. “With that kind of reasoning, how does anyone get a loan for anything? ‘What if they die in a car accident and their kids don’t want the house—the color of wallpaper they might choose might make it harder to resell…’”
Kelly was silent, so I plowed forward. “Look…this property has been an island since we first put in the application. Everyone knew that. You have paperwork to show every dusty corner of our life. You see our income, you see that we’ve never had a foreclosure or a car repossessed. I paid off my student loans. This isn’t really a second mortgage for us… You have no reason to suspect that we're going to default. It is grossly unfair for this to be taken away from us now because some guy in a suit somewhere doesn’t understand what an island is. There’s a Simon and Garfunkle song I could recommend if that would be helpful.”
“I understand your concerns, Mrs. Bryant. I really do. I’m here to be your advocate, and I’m going to talk to Executive Leadership with all of this information and see what we can do.”
“Thank you, Kelly,” I said, knowing I sounded exhausted at 9:30 in the morning.
When I pushed the button to end the call, my phone immediately buzzed with an email from our real estate agent, Lisa. She was forwarding me an email she had already received…from Megan…telling her that the loan was not going to be moving forward. Sorry for the inconvenience. Have a nice day. Lisa hadn’t written anything in her own email except for five question marks. I had the feeling she was probably driving. I had the feeling Lisa spent most of her time driving.
The phone didn’t even sound like it had rung before she answered, and because she knew it was me, she didn’t even say hello.
“Oh my god you must be livid! Did they tell you why?”
“I think they’ve just realized that it’s an island.”
“Just realized? The listing is called ‘Serenity Island’ for Chrissakes!”
“Well, maybe they just thought it was a clever name.”
“Oh my god. What are you going to do?”
Before I could formulate an answer, Lisa jumped in again. “Don’t cancel your flight! Come on up, visit the island, we’ll figure this out!”
I tried to tell myself that her concern was for us…not just that she was counting on making this sale. “I’m not cancelling anything,” I assured her with a sigh. “I refuse to accept that this is suddenly over. I’m going to get in touch with the bank you recommended in the first place. I’m guessing they have more experience with this kind of property.”
“Yes! Do that! Call Linda at Maine Savings! Oh my god…”
“I’ll let you know how it goes,” I said, and then hung up, glad to get the road noise out of my ear.
I did make the call to Maine Savings, and Linda was every bit as friendly and helpful as Lisa had predicted. It turns out that the second time you apply for the same loan, everything is much easier, because I already had a file folder on my laptop with all the documents it had taken us days to gather the first time. Click click click click click…send. Linda told me that they did have a special program just for this kind of property, and that the only hold up there might be was whether the bank could accept the appraisal I sent, as they hadn’t actually commissioned it themselves. “Well,” I said, resignedly, “we just paid four thousand dollars for that appraisal…last week…so hopefully they will make an exception.”
“I will do my best for you!” She assured me. So, now, between Kelly and Linda, I had two people promising to do their best for me…which felt like it meant very little.
It was a long day, but finally, Linda called me back to say that we were APPROVED by Maine Savings, but that "for this kind of property" they could only offer a 15 year fixed loan...which obviously changed that mortgage payment I knew I could make. Roger wasn't at home, but we had been in touch all day since the first call, and we began talking about how we could scramble things to make this work...we weren't giving up. I was about to call Linda back to accept the offer when my phone rang again...Kelly from Quicken finally calling me back.
"So...Executive Leadership understands that you can walk to the island at low tide, but I guess they're concerned that you can't just...drive there?" Again, a statement that ended with a question mark. This time, I was feeling very cool, knowing I had that other loan in my pocket, so I said, "No...no...you can't drive to an island. That's true."
But, for some reason, I decided to fill in a few more gaps. I said, "But the sale includes deeded access to a space on the shore to park the car. So, you park the car, and then you walk over at low tide."
I could tell Kelly was writing. She said, "I want to make sure I'm getting this verbiage right... you have...deeded...access..."
I interrupted her, speaking softly and deliberately. "Kelly...I got that verbiage out of the appraisal...which you have! The same appraisal you guys used to reject the loan. There's a whole page that shows the quitclaim deed which guarantees deeded access to park our car."
This time, her answer was super quick. "Okay! I'll call you back!"
I called Linda, and she told me to watch my email for some Docusign papers to agree to the loan. I watched. I waited.
And just before they arrived, I got another call from Kelly. "OK! You're approved!"
Now, I gotta tell ya, it was REALLY tempting to tell Quicken Loans to go fish...but we really needed the 30 year loan with the lower interest rate. Yes, we'd love to pay it off early, and I'm sure we will, but we needed to not be bound to that higher payment. Linda had worked really hard for me all day long, and now I was going to have to tell her no, thank you. I was incredulous!
Linda Elliott at Maine Savings...if you ever read this...I understand why you never responded to me when I emailed with the news. I really am sorry, and I really do appreciate you holding my hand through what would have otherwise been a really terrible day...and I hope you enjoyed the fruit basket.
So the final gut-punch was that, because of this one-day delay, our closing couldn't be on Monday...it couldn't be until Tuesday...which (at first) meant that we wouldn't even be present for our own closing, because we were flying home Tuesday morning. But Lisa, the real estate agent worked quickly with the title company to arrange to have us meet someone early Tuesday morning so that we could actually be present...but it also meant that we would close on our way out of town, and not have the 24 hours with "our own island" that we'd been looking forward to. I had been planning to go ahead and rearrange furniture, and pack a couple of cushions to take home for correctly sizing the covers...but now none of that would happen. Thanks Quicken Loans. But also...thanks Quicken Loans!
And also, you're welcome. Now you know what an island is.
