PULLING TOGETHER - Once in a while something really good happens, and I thought I'd share a story from just a couple of weeks ago. We had a contract come in on a listing that was preapproved by GMAC Mortgage. As a reputable lender with a reputable loan officer, this was all good. The first clue we had a problem was when the appraiser called 2 days before closing, wanting access to the house. Not a problem, we got him in, and the loan officer was pretty sure we would close on time. The morning of closing, we were told we would have to delay til the next morning. Then afternoon. Finally, at 4pm on a Friday afternoon, we discovered they had never even finished processing the loan. This is where the good part comes in.

I do all of my closings for my listings at Peoples Title. Sally Shelton, my closer, has been doing my closings for years, and I have always joked about her "saving my bacon" more than once. This ended up being one of those cases. Realizing the lender had completely dropped the ball, Sally suggested we get Peoples Bank involved. They have their own mortgage department, and everyone was still there (GMAC said their staff was no longer available to finish the job). We got the loan transferred, and completely underwritten by Peoples Bank of Colorado Springs, within 3 hours. Although we were so far past banking hours we could no longer close and fund that night, the successful closing was the next business day. The buyer was being deployed to Iraq the following day, so needless to say, there were a lot of happy people as a result of the great job done by Sally Shelton on the closing end, and Sharon Walker (719-548-5148!) on the loan origination end of that one, not to mention to the underwriter who stayed until almost 8pm on a Friday night. It was really good to see a group of people work so hard to make something good happen for both the buyer and the seller. OBTW, GMAC announced it was closing all of it's retail branches the day after we closed.

Todays photo was some columbine up in Breckenridge. I thought flowers were a fitting symbol of the day, 9/11. Everyone remembers where they were when the news came in that day. I was on the way to our monthly sales meeting at a local hotel. The images on the TV screens in the lobby were horrifying, and I still cannot bear to watch the replays of those planes crashing into the World Trade Center.

In the middle of this rancorous election process, I can't help but remember back fondly of those days immediately following 9/11 when we all seemed to pull together for a while.