I understand that interest rates are fluctuating wildly right now and you want to lock me in while they’re low, low, low. I get that you’re on commission and it’s not your fault that it’s an absurd and probably unethical way to pay you. This makes you prone to rush and try too hard. I get that, I do. But the fact is that we’re talking about a metric ton of money, and if I take the whole 30 years to pay it off, a double metric ton. Yes, I’d like a lower interest rate. But when I say that I’m not willing to raise my principal to get it because my roommate and I are only committed to this house for another year and a half and we want to actually have equity in it at that time, that means you should not roll fees into the principle for us. When I say that only being committed for 1.5 years doesn’t mean we’re moving in May of 2011 and we’re neither of us particularly attached to our careers of the moment it means you should not bring up the adjustable rate option again.
You were probably never trained for commissioned sales properly, so let me tell you a secret: The customer can smell your desperation. In a country where the economy just imploded under the weight of desperate mortgage loans, very few people are going to be comfortable doing business with somebody who reeks of “Oh dear god, please call me back now.” It’s my loss if I don’t sign the paper work in time to lock the rate. That’s how I should see it. I should not worry that if I don’t call you back in an hour because, heaven forfend, I want to talk it over with my co-borrower, you’re going to call me again. Stop getting your desperate all over me.
And yeah, your deal might be exactly the thing I ought to do. I just cut my monthly income at least in half and upped my basic cost of living, so I’m well aware of how nice it would be to save some money. But I do not know mortgages and lending the way I do, say, copywright law, so I do not trust you not to screw me. Sure, you might mean well, but I’m a home owner less than three years out of college, on her way back to school, living somewhere she does not want to be forever. The priorities of most home owners are not mine. In the absence of confidence in my ability to look at the numbers and know what they mean, I have to decide whether or not I trust you. I do not trust you. No deal.
Anaea Lay 