2006 was much better. I made a trip to S’pore for CNY and surprised my parents of my visit. My sister and I “pakat” (collaborated) and she planned with her hubby how to get out of their house to pick me up in the middle of the night. One thing about flying Northworst (Northwest) Airlines, their flights arrive in the middle of the night and leave S’pore early in the frigging morning. Sis told our parents her hubby had to be on duty at the airport. Ah hah, parents bought that!! As soon as I walked on the jet way, I felt like ripping my sweat pants off – the blast of humidity and the heat coming from the Arctic weather.
Collected my luggage and headed to my sis’ home. It was 6 years since I was last in S’pore. Everything seems so strange. I forgot how much smaller the lanes are and the lorries! I could not remember when the last time I used that word “lorry”. One thing about S’pore is their freeways are constantly lit up during the nights. I was able to look-see better in the dark.
Our parents were definitely surprised and mom gave sis hell (sorta) for not telling her I was coming over. I was in S’pore for 12 days and back to reality. It was too short of a trip. My boss could not let me out for too long due to affirmative action plans deadlines. 12 days was better then none. I thoroughly enjoyed my trip and was able to see my five nephews. I have never seen my brother’s youngest boy and my sis’ youngest boy was not even a year old the last I saw him. The boys grown so much. I finally saw my brother after 8 years. So much to catch up between the two of us. It was a worth-well12-day trip.
After I got back, DB and I had to renew our renter’s lease with the bitch of a landlady. Man, she is one heck of a woman. Everything has to be her way and she always thinks she’s right. She agreed to renew the lease for another 6 months. At the mean time, we were finding ways to up our credit score. Since we were officially bankrupt as of November 14, 2004, we cannot purchase a home for 2 years. DB wants to purchase a home with a VA (Veteran’s Administration) loan, but nope, we can’t. Gotta wait 24 months. Cilaka!!! So, we continue to work on increasing our credit score by securing a credit card, opened another account at US Federal Credit Union, paid all bills on time, no late payments at all, and read on articles from Stephen Snyder, Life After Bankruptcy author. We attended his seminar in early January, 2005 and we found it very resourceful. He gave out a ton of tips on how to increase our credit scores to buy a house and vehicles after bankruptcy.
In May, we checked our credit scores and it was slightly above the average compared to the lower 400s and 500s 1+ years ago. So, we contacted the same realtor again and told her we were looking to buy a house. She got a hold of a loan office from Bell Mortgage and she said the same thing about VA loans. If we can secure a loan from the VA, we don’t have to cough out money for down payment and the interest rate is lower. So the loan officer work things out and we cooperated with whatever paperwork she needed.
At the mean time, we were surfing the web for houses. Our wish list for a house were: built in late 1990s onwards; 3 or a 2+ car garage; 3 bedrooms; rambler (getting old – can’t go up and down the stairs that much!!); big kitchen since we spend 80% of the time in the kitchen; quiet neighborhood with no noises from freeway or main roads; automatic blinds and of course fenced yard. Yeh, we bookmarked those homes within our price range. We sent our wish list to our realtor and the same day she sent us an email if we are interested in this house http://client.rnc.imprev.net/611/4931/index.ipv. The first thing we saw was the kitchen – too small, the rest of the house was awesome. Realtor called and told us there will be an open house the same weekend.
We went and saw the house. Indeed the kitchen was smaller than what we wanted but it was open and airy. Came home and we talked about it for a week and we finally told the realtor we were interested in that house. She arranged for us to see the house again and then the stress began. The seller, the wife, was pregnant and she was bitchy about everu questions we asked. Hey women, do you want to sell your house or not?? Plus dealing with the phone calls with the loan officer, started packing since end of August was round the corner when the lease expires we had to move out anyways and getting ready for our trip to Montana. We were running around like a chicken with the head cut off.
Finally on August 8, 2006, we signed our lives away. The amount of paperwork to sign during a closing was nuts. A lot more now then when we bought our first home. Yeah, we are new home owners now. Yehahhh!! Happy, we can move in on August 25, but wait it’s not over yet. We still need to clean the rented house for showings, finish packing and make arrangements with bro in-law and gang to help us move. Bro in-law said he will round up his boys (son and son in-law) to help us on the 25th. A week before the scheduled move, DB called his bro to finalize the time and so forth. Bro in-law said he can’t make as he picked up a few shifts for the State Fair. (Bro in-law is a paramedic). What about the boys? They can’t make it either – can’t take time off from work. Sonofabitch!!! Boy, were we pissed. We knew we can’t count on them much, but we took the chance. What the hell we gonna do?? We scrambled for whatever funds we had and called a moving company to move the heavy stuff, mainly the piano, big screen, refrigerator, washer, dryer, lawn rider and dining room table. (Turned out, moving companies do not move lawn riders.)
In between all these havoc, we need to show the house to future renters. You know when these folks show up, the present owners need to disappear for a while so the landlord can show the house in peace. F-ing-eh, so “ma fan” (troublesome) – gotta take the boys out for walks or rides, and usually these folks will take longer than they said when the appointment was initially was made. There were 5 – 6 showings but no go. On August 25, moving guys from Three Men and A Truck (they were horrible) came moved all the heavy stuff to the new house. Step-daughter’s friends came the next day and helped moved the rest of the medium-weight stuff the next day. The rest of the misc. stuff, we moved them. After getting rid of stuff we don’t want, there were still so much shit left. Anyhow, we moved in to our house after being a bankrupt for 1+ year. We were proud of ourselves. All of our hardwork to increase our credit score to the 700s and saving whatever we had worked out beautifully and now we are strapped to this home sweet home of ours for 2-years with a fixed rate of….you don’t even want to know….you want to know? Be prepared!
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The rate was fixed at 9.2%. “Sei um sei”?? And it’s ARM for 2 years. After two years, we can apply for a VA loan from the same mortgage company. The loan officer mentioned it shouldn’t be a problem. Hopefully it’s true.
(To be continued….Montana Trip)
That’s all for Part 5. School starts tonight and I’m already stressed out!!