Da’ Nile

NOT JUST A RIVER IN EGYPT

OK, so when it was all said and done, I knew I would need to take out a loan to put a new roof on my house.  The cost was estimated to be between $12k and $15k.  We ended up getting it done for somewhere in the middle of those two figures, but yes, we did need to take out a loan to do it.  As a person who is concerned about climate change, I’ve long been interested in getting solar panels installed on my house as well.  So we did that. We used to have the old-fashioned kind from the 70’s on our old house, but they had been disconnected during the installation of a new water heater by an installation person who didn’t know how they all worked together.  We never had them re-hooked up.  So, for half the time we lived in that house, we had old fashioned solar panels on the house that didn’t work at all.  The good news about that was that the solar panels seemed to work to keep the roof from deteriorating, so we lived there for 14 years and never needed a new roof.  We made up for it with this house. 

The solar company offered us a great loan with low interest rates and no pre-payment penalty.  It seemed a little confusing, but we went ahead with it.  Everything seemed fine because the payments are well within our budget.  So, everything is installed now, and the loan payments are scheduled to start in October.  At one point a couple weeks ago, I called the loan company to confirm that everything had been installed, and then they transferred me to a mortgage consultant so I could apply for a real mortgage.  I don’t want a real mortgage.  But this guy started doing his thing, and finally, I said, “you know, I’m really not into this conversation right now.”  He went silent. He said I was “leaving a bunch of money on the table by not re-financing.”  The whole thing gave me the heebie jeebies.  I hung up on him and started running my own numbers.  We looked at our current loan docs again just to make sure we got what we thought we got.  I’m no expert about loans, but we’ve looked at the paperwork several times and it seems to be what they purport it to be.  So why are they transferring me to another loan agent when I haven’t even started my first payment on the loan I have yet?  I can say I don’t know for sure, but I think I’ve gotten into some kind of hustle. 

Later, the mortgage guy sent me an email that referred to any loan I would get from him as a “debt consolidation loan.”  Something I’m definitely not interested in.   A debt consolidation loan will treat the symptom, but it won’t solve the problem.  It’s just a way for more sleazy loan agents and their companies to make money from loan origination fees and interest. Siphoning out your home equity one loan origination fee at a time.  It was at that point that I had a wake-up call. 

It’s easy to be lulled into complacency in today’s world.  The world of loans and credit is confusing to most people, whether they want to believe that statement is true or not.  Everyone thinks they’re smart and won’t get taken in by sleazy salesmen. And then it happens. 

The first step in the 12 Steps of AA begins with, “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.”  That’s really the first step to solving any problem.  You must be willing to admit that there is a problem, and most people don’t want to do that. It takes guts to do it.  But don’t underestimate the power of seeing the truth.  It’s where all change begins.