It was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving 2021, and the closing was finally scheduled, so I took off from work. I had survived house-hunting, mortgage application, home inspection, lawyer negotiations, and two weeks of appraisal delays.  Movers were scheduled, and I was working on purging and packing up my belongings in my current apartment.

My realtor, Joe Pizzillo, and I met at the house early for the final walk-through to ensure nothing had changed with the house since the inspection.  We checked everything, and the lock on the crawl space was good, and there were no signs that someone had tried to break in again. 

“My first thing tonight is to put up some paper blinds,” I told Joe. “I have friends coming over tonight to help, and I’m bribing them with pizza!”

“Nice, you have a fun evening planned.  Since we’re done here, how about if we go drink more coffee at Starbucks on the way to the closing and kill some time?” Joe suggested.  Both of us drove our cars, and while I was on the highway at the end of morning rush hour traffic, the lawyer’s office called me.

The lawyer’s assistant told me the closing was just cancelled due to a paperwork issue with the sellers.  I stammered that Joe and I would call her back in a few minutes from Starbucks.

I arrived a minute before Joe did and slowly got out of the car, numb from the shock of the call.  As he got out of his SUV, I started walking over and just blurted it out.

“The lawyer’s assistant called me—they canceled the closing.”

“You’re kidding, that’s funny!” Joe smiled at me, clearly still in a cheery mood.

“I’m actually not kidding!  I wish I were—Ilene called while I was driving.  I told her we’d call back,” I replied, unsure what would happen since I was already nervous about holding onto the check for the down payment and closing in my purse.  

“Ok, let’s get inside and get on the phone, so we can find out what’s going on,” Joe said.

A few minutes later, we had the lawyer’s assistant on speakerphone, and she explained that the seller’s lawyer had sat on an issue with the title not properly clearing.  For the next few hours, Joe turned from friendly realtor/house therapist into a realtor-shark, calling whoever he could, including the title company that had inherited the records of the previous seller’s paperwork.  

Meanwhile, I sat there at Starbucks, listening to it all, and then Joe asked me if I wanted to go to the title company and wait while he tried to resolve it or if we should pack it in.

“Work is so busy, it would be difficult for me to reschedule, so I’d prefer to get this figured out today, if possible,” I replied as I stared into my mostly-empty cappuccino.

I wouldn’t be at a closing the next day; instead, I’d be fused to my work computer, as I was knee-deep in a complex annual project.

Fully caffeinated, we drove over to the title company and took up residence at their reception area while Joe called more people.  I leaned back in the chair and stared at the bland navy carpet, hopeful but also contemplating my options if the deal did fall through.  Maybe I could take the down payment money and become a digital nomad.  I had my passport.

But my lease was up in a month, movers were booked, and painters were scheduled to repaint the rooms in the new house in two days.

By 1 p.m., Joe had pressured everyone else to resolve the issue, and the title company and lawyer rescheduled the closing to start in 30 minutes.  I handed over the large check to the title company staff, ready to sign my life away.  Anthony, my lawyer (who my dad has known for years), was entertaining and efficient as he led me through signing the papers.  By 2 p.m., I was officially a homeowner!

In a daze, I returned to my apartment and picked up the stacks of paper blinds I had waiting, along with the duct tape, a lamp, a stepladder, scissors, and also packed some drinks and paper cups for my blinds-hanging dinner party.  Before my friends showed up, I put the blinds on the floor below all 16 of the windows that needed them.

I also unwrapped my first mail, a gift bottle of wine from Joe!  The sun started to set as my friends showed up with a lot of wine, and we taped up the paper blinds quickly.  Soon, we were all sitting on the floor in the sunroom, eating pizza and drinking wine, and I was so relieved and thankful that I was now a homeowner.

Check out next Tuesday’s post on my house-hunting journey to see which house I wanted (the one with a creepy basement, the one with an underground living room, the empty-shell house, or the one with the coffin)…..