Poised

After so much conjecture about buying a house, it was all meant to get decided today.

While all indications suggest that buying a house in the current market is madness, we've plunged ahead against seemingly insurmountable odds. At first, it was getting credit. As foreigners, we not to be trusted by the banking establishment. Then, it has been the system itself which provides so many systemic road-blocks, you'd think you were trying to escape an Eastern block country in 1967 rather than give someone a bunch of money for an old, run-down house in a crowded, dirty city. Hiccups in the system prolonged the experience, the best being the mortgage lender moving head offices and leaving everyone in our chain waiting for them to pull it together.

Now that we've negotiated the various hurdles, we are left wondering if this is our best idea ever. Months of speculation by the experts have forcasted a cooling-off, if not down-turn in the housing market. Is it the British penchant for worrying or is it the reality of US mortgage crisis reaching beyond US borders? Then, of course, one of the significant mortgage lenders over here ran into a massive crisis the other day. Northern Rock (is anyone noticing the possible metephor with Canada here?) has declared a state of emergency as its investors and customers clamour to pull out. Cripes. The possible collapse of the banking industry would really conspire against us buying this house.... of course, that is a woeful overstatement. Still, we've heard nothing today from the Estate Agent, despite them having hassled us for weeks about being ready to move, move, move.

So, is it shocking customer service? Is it systemic incomeptence? Is it the wholesale collapse of the banking industry? Is it that our mortgage lender is still on summer holiday? Tough to say. My bet is that we won't exchange contracts today. The irony being: somehow we will get blamed for it. We've got the accents that will have everyone else in the chain nodding their heads in collective understanding. It must, after all, be the Canadians.