Sign your Life on the Line

My beautiful wife and I closed on our first home Friday afternoon. Thank God we've jumped through the last hoop. For those of you that have this process ahead of you, I'd like to offer a few words of advice.

--If you're one of the crazy people out there that likes to read a document before you sign it, make sure to tell your closing agent ahead of time. This fake woman kept looking at her watch and repeating, "It's just a standard form" when I took the time to read what I was signing. Screw her! This is the biggest decision of my life and I read the Blockbuster receipt before I sign it just to make sure I'm not getting ram-rodded.

--Force your bank to give you a copy of all documents they are sending to the realtors and title company a few days in advance. They won't want to... but insist on it. Twenty minutes before the closing I was calling people to correct an error in the closing settlement fee and we almost didn't finish the process because the last document put in front of us stated an incorrect mortgage rate. Ridiculous.

--Talk to the most prominent person in a bank you can get ahold of. I dicked around with a normal mortgage broker for too long and she wouldn't budge on any kind of a rate reduction... even though we have an excellent credit score. I always thought I'd be rewarded for paying my bills and staying out of debt. That's not how low-level lenders understand it (or are forbidden from understanding it). This lady's boss gave me a decent rate. I feel a little bad about going over her head, but saving tens of thousands allows me to not lose any sleep.

--Have the seller throw in a dart board.