Cliffs Notes:

Found house 7/29, made offer 8/2, offer accepted 8/10, been waiting since (now 10/25) for Wells Fargo to approve the sale (sellers apparently owe more than the selling price). Even got the state attorney general involved and that was nearly a month ago!

Long Version:

Like I said, we found the house on 7/29. It seemed like a great house and we loved it. The MLS listing showed that the house was subject to a short sale. Our realtor kept pushing us and pushing us and pushing us that we should make an offer. I balked and wasn't too anxious to make an offer. The house had been on the market since March so I knew we had time. On 8/1 our realtor called and told us that the bank was calling for all offers to be in by 8/2 so my wife and I drove an hour and a half after work to go fill in the paperwork to submit our offer. On 8/2 our realtor dropped off our offer and was told that we were one of four.

On 8/9 I got a call from our realtor that the sellers had accepted an offer from another bidder and it was someone relocating who submitted their deposit check from their company. This bidder got their own appraisal for $50,000 more than the selling price and wanted to purchase the house for that amount and then have the sellers cut a check back to the buyer for $50,000. My wife and I bumped our bid to $1,000 over asking price and our realtor went in with this bid and ranted and raved about this other offer being illegal. Our offer was accepted but the sellers were in France so we couldn't get the contract back signed.

Sometime toward the end of August, we got the word from the seller's agent that they had officially accepted our offer and we could proceed with mortgage, home inspection, etc. And we did do that.

In early September I got a lawyer involved to oversee everything. They started the title search and we were always hearing that we were one step closer with getting a settlement with Wells Fargo. It always seemed to me that we were 99.9% there. Then, the next time I'd call for an update, I'd find out that we had another step and it was done and we now seemed to be 99.99% there. And so on until now I think we're 99.999999999999% there... but there always seems to be more that needs to be done!

Just when we gave up on October 1, my lawyer called me to tell me that he had a friend that works in the Attorney General's office who he would get involved. After that, there was some action. Wells Fargo started returning phone calls and replying to the seller, their agent, and my lawyer.

On October 16 the seller was very excited because he heard from Wells Fargo and it seemed that the paperwork had been submitted for final approval. I spoke with my lawyer in the coming days only to find out that Wells Fargo had requested a revised HUD from them. They found a problem with the revised HUD and requested another one with some changes.

This week (week of October 22) Wells Fargo sent a verbal confirmation that the approval was given. It is now October 25 and no one has heard anything from anyone at Wells Fargo and no one can get a hold of anyone at Wells Fargo.


After 3 months of aggravation, my wife and I are walking away from this house! We love the house, we love the area, it's very close to a good friend of mine, but I can't waste any more of my life waiting for Wells Fargo to get their act together... this is ridiculous!

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