Weighing the Options

Things have been quiet on the home-improvement front.  I feel like we're hanging in limbo.

Mostly, it's not our fault.  I was really super angry about this, but I've come to terms with the fact that there's just nothing we can do about it.  In January, when we were deciding between adding on and buying a different home, I called to get pre-approved.

Well.  The news we heard wasn't good.  Sallie Mae, the owner of our souls {and Nic's student loans} accidentally 'left out' two of the loans {because we have, like, 30} when they were consolidated.  Our lovely collection of loans were due to be paid back in October, and we were faithfully paying each month.  Problem was, we had no idea about the two loans that were left out.  We weren't contacted, so we didn't know.

We found out, though, when our credit showed a past due amount for 120 days.  Wait!  What?!?  We are the kind of people who pay our bills.  I immediately called both Sallie Mae and the company that consolidates their loans, and lo and behold, no one would take the blame.  And even if they would have, credit history is pretty much written in permanent, non-washable Sharpie.

This caused our credit to drop significantly, and even though we called and made the accounts current that same day, they don't really care.  It takes credit a long time to go up {but it falls fast}.

The reason this is such a problem for us right now is that, after careful thought, we'd like to roll our addition into our mortgage.  Since our current interest rate is high {it's from 2006}, we can refinance at the same time, finance the addition, and not see much of a change in our current payment.  Awesome.

Well, except that we can't qualify right now because of someone else's mistake.

So here are our options:

1. Sell this house and buy another {which requires a much lower credit score}.  But we don't want to do this.  Not even a little.
2. Refinance the mortgage {without the new addition}, and pay for it out-of-pocket.  Not a terrible option, but we'd still have to wait at least a month.  I'm a terrible waiter.
3. Wait 2-3 months, and then go ahead with the plan.  Yes, I know this is the best option.  I totally get that.  I just suck at waiting.  Big time.

We do have some things we can do in the meantime.  Our bathroom needs some TLC, and we can move forward with the plans to update our kitchen and knock down some walls.  And I could start painting doors black!!  I'm just getting very antsy, and our contractor is anticipating building costs to jump up.  Oh, and interest rates will be going up as soon as the unemployment rate goes down {not that I'm hoping for a high unemployment rate...}.

Mostly, it is just *so* frustrating that this is even happening, because we didn't do anything wrong.  Someone else {someone bigger} made a mistake and won't take responsibility.  I get that this is a first-world problem, and we're really blessed to have a safe, warm home and a healthy, happy family.

But it still sucks.

Know what else sucks?  When your furnace dies {beyond repair} in the middle of a snowstorm.  More details on that when we actually have some.