Why Rent When You Can Buy? Oh, That's Why.

So, my husband is in North Carolina, attempting to teach miscreants teenagers how to diagram a sentence. I am here, holding onto my sanity by a thread down the fort. After much discussion and some frustrating apartment-hunting (online by both of us and in-person by him), we have decided that it couldn't hurt to look into buying a house. This, of course, means applying for a mortgage. Because, you see, you can't really buy a house until you ask The Man for some money and The Man tells you how much imaginary money you'll have to spend.

We went through this once before, in California, before we decided that working two jobs apiece just to own a piece of shit condo in the seedy end of town was not something we wanted to pursue. I handled it all, spending much time on the phone with a very nice lady from some mortgage firm or other, a firm which apparently sold my information to whoever buys that sort of thing, because now I get 10 automated robot telemarketing calls a week on my cellphone about "an important personal business matter" and "the great rate I can give you on your current mortgage." Whatever, dudes.

I also handled the documentation and made many phone calls badgering a certain employee of another mortgage company to GET OFF HIS ASS and do something when we had to use that mortgage company in order to qualify for a downpayment assistance program provided by the city and a reduced-interest-rate program for teachers. This guy took our documents and then sat on them for four weeks, while I left him an increasing number of irate messages and finally called threatening to camp out in his office until he filed our paperwork for us. In the end, it didn't much matter, since we didn't want to buy a piece of shit condo in a piece of shit town, but we only decided this after I spent all those weeks trying to get this assmonkey to do his fucking job.

Anyway, this time Max is handling it so far, although I will be the one digging up our tax records and pay stubs and bank statements when it comes time. Max has on occasion sighed heavily and rolled his eyes at my obsessive filing of our personal documents, but a couple of days ago he thanked me for my dedication because he knew all it would take was the flip of a file-box-lid to get what we need.

Monday he called to tell me he called several mortgage people and was only able to get one on the phone. It was a guy, and when Max explained what we're looking for/our situation, this particular mortgage-broker-person said he was just going to run Max's credit/info, instead of ours together, because he thought that would give us a better score and more money. We were under the impression that since we're married, it doesn't much matter, but I guess that's not the case.

I was irritated, because when Max relayed the conversation, I got the distinct impression that this mortgage guy had dismissed me outright since I'm not employed (at least, not in a paycheck-gathering, social-security-accruing sort of way) and am, for all intents and purposes, a Stay At Home Mom. Which, uh, let's face it, as much as I just shuddered typing that sentence, I am. Oh dear, there goes another shudder.

However, this does not mean that I am happy to be cast aside uncounted. Particularly since my credit score is 60-100 points higher than my husband's (which makes it very high, the sort of high that made dollar signs pop into housing lenders' eyes during our first attempt at buying a home). My husband has good credit, but that is mostly due to my influence (and by "influence" I mean constant badgering about paying bills on time, taking over paying the bills so they get paid on time, and threatening to make him eat his credit card if he used it again before the balance was fully paid off). So I am a leeeeetle annoyed that this loan guy is blowing off my very existence.

My irritation with this loan guy's attitude is approaching the levels I reached during our house-shopping days in California, when I endured all manner of sexist comments and attitudes from realtors. I'm still not sure if people involved in the house-buying business are this stupid and offensive to everyone, or if everyone but me is too stupid to be offended.