The whole point of this blog is to share my personal lessons and stories with you, so that you can learn from my mistakes and also from my successes. Yesterday, I had a very surreal experience.
I visited a collection agency. In person.
Let's rewind a bit so you have some context. My wife and I are in the process of buying a home. (Don't worry. There will be many blog entries to come on the topic.) I'd love to say that we've graduated from the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University and are paying for the home with cash. I'd love to say a lot of things. We're not paying with cash.
The decision to buy or rent is really a different ball of wax, and I'll write more about that another day. That aside, Kim and I decided that we wanted to buy a home. We wanted security. We wanted a driveway and a backyard. We wanted a living situation that didn't involve neighbors that could be heard through ceilings, floors and walls.
Because we decided that that was the direction we wanted to go in and because we do not have cash to make the purchase, we needed a home loan.
In today's climate, it is a buyer's market. This is true in that a buyer can get a better deal, better interest rates and an easier time purchasing a house than he could in the past. But there are some parameters that you don't hear very often in regard to this advantageous state.
While it is true that a buyer will currently be able to get more concessions from a seller, it is also true that the buyer's credit has, perhaps, never been more closely scrutinized than is the case these days.
Why? Because of all the foreclosures. The Universe is beautiful. There's a push to every pull. A take to every give. An equal and opposite reaction. The real estate market is not immune to these laws of science.
Home ownership was a big deal. I'm not going to get into politics, but it is true that Obama has pushed for more American citizens to own homes and has efforted to make that easier for them to do. While he (and everyone who supported those efforts) had the best of intentions, they have been somewhat misplaced.
The idea of everyone owning a home is fantastic. We should all own houses and have a turkey in every pot. That would be great. The sad aspect is that we are not all capable of handling that responsibility.
So what you're seeing now is an environment where banks are nervous about lending. They don't make money by giving money away. It has to come back to them and it has to have a return attached.
All that to say: our finances have been gone over with a fine-toothed comb. Our credit reports have been analyzed. Our pay stubs have been looked at. Every little aspect has been important.
I've said in this blog that we are nearly debt free. For transparency, I'm admitting (and not trying to pretend otherwise) that we still had a few things to take care of. As of yesterday, we are now debt free, other than our student loan debt and the mortgage we are about to take on. Not perfect, but a work in progress.
One of those debts was due to a collection agency in the area where we live. Long story short: Five years ago, I had to have my appendix removed and had no health insurance. I couldn't pay for it. I stupidly didn't even try to work out payments with the hospital. They sent the bills to collections and these bills were the last things standing in the way of us getting a mortgage.
So yesterday was the big day that I entered the lion's den. I saw where the enemy sleeps. It was interesting.
The building was unlabeled. It is clear that they don't want people to know who they are. At the time I showed up, it looked like they were in the middle of a shift change. This gave me an opportunity to see pretty much each and every person who worked there. They were mostly women and all had a similar beaten-down look about them. I don't mean to be insulting. They just looked downtrodden. I'd probably look that way too. I don't know if you could pay me enough to call people during dinner and remind them that we haven't forgotten that they owe us money. And that they're jerks.
There was no walking into the actual office. There was a sliding window with two receptionists behind it, eagerly waiting for debtors to make payment arrangements.
There was a door that was shut and secured by a "Mission Impossible" looking combination locking mechanism.
In the midst of a sea of cubicles was the "brains" of the operation. He was the man behind the curtain, but instead of a curtain, he lived inside a glass box. Literally. The boss man worked in a glass cubicle with a glass ceiling. He was able to swivel in his chair at any point to ensure that his worker bees were applying the necessary pressure.
Scattered around the office were "inspirational" posters, ostensibly to motivate the employees to greatness. Humorous.
That was it. It was a little depressing. I felt bad for them. I wanted to leave as soon as I could.
But I had another emotion and it was truthfully of pure elation. Why? Because I was done with them. This week, I became totally done with debt collectors. I'll never have to listen to their dumb disclaimer again. (This is an attempt to collect a debt and any information obtained will be used for that purpose. This communication was sent from a debt collector.) I'll never have to have one of them suggest to me, over the phone, that I get a third job to help pay them off sooner. I'll never get another one of their threatening letters. They can't sue me. They can't call me. They can't do anything to me.
The truth is that I'm kind've realizing all this as I write this blog post. Kim and I haven't had the opportunity to properly celebrate because we've been so embroiled in the process of buying our first home.
The hope is that, by next week, we will have killed two birds with one stone. We will be done with collectors. We will own our very first house.
We will do the happy dance. We may even video tape it. Stay tuned...
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