Became a Home Owner Today (after a very stressful day)

6:34 AM (of Friday, August 6th 2021)

I woke up this morning and walked outside for 1.5 hours which turned out to be around 6600 steps at my pace. I was hoping and praying the entire time for the closing deal to finally succeed in the meeting at 11 AM this morning. There were some issues with the "Source of funds", not really issues, but they just wanted them from July too, not just from June. So I had to provide those. This entire time I thought they were just so annoying and villainous with the emails, like I didn't want to share this information, but they were making me.

I had work to worry about too, because admittedly I have been behind a bunch. I apologized to my boss for not having completed this one item recently, because I've been distracted by this home closing thing. Anyway that was my excuse.

While walking too, I didn't care too much about the result. I visualized the worst case scenarios of losing all the money I sent them, and me thinking that everything was still fine even if that happened. Yeah, everything would still have been completely fine even if I had lost all that. I thought about how I would react if say, someone loses a similar amount in some scam or something, and it would basically be "ouch, well that's a lesson learned from that guy," and that's how I thought about it if it happened to me too. I would just feel like, "ouch, that's a lesson learned from me."

I did a teeny amount of work this morning, I'm still signing off today as 0 hours done, because I didn't do anything the rest of the day. At around 10 AM I just got very prepared for the meeting at 11 AM. I took a shower, dressed nicely, got paperwork ready, and headed out at around 10:40 AM.

Everything was so stressful in the meeting. Hugely stressful. 10/10 stressful. When I met the people I've been talking to over the emails though, they were so nice. The woman I thought was so mean and evil in the emails, emailing all "officially" and demanding such and such information, was this very sweet and kind woman, very plump, and very casual, not so "official" like in the emails. Omg I imagined her to be this monster business woman executive. She explained that she needed these documents for the auditor who would look at them. In hindsight, it was not so demanding, it was just protocol, she had to ask for this stuff.

Anyway, I go there, I park at this parking lot outside, and walk over to the realtor offices. This was my second time in this area, but I had never actually seen their office or knew where it was. I just walked over to the building that my GPS told me to go to, and voila, they were right there on the bottom floor, one of two offices there I guess. Awesome. So they let me in, and direct me to a meeting room. That's when the woman came in and introduced herself.

She gives me a bunch of paperwork to sign and I sign them. They've already sent me all that paperwork before, so I just had to initial my name on every page and sign on the last pages. While doing that, they said that this one source of funds didn't have sufficient information, but I sent them all the information that I could. I wanted to show them, so my realtor offers to give me his laptop and I can sign in and try to figure it out there. But every time I tried to log in, it said "verification email sent, please confirm" but they never sent me any such email so I couldn't sign into my account! I was sweating so much as we waited like 30 minutes just for me to be able to log in, but I wasn't able to.

I also went to the bank and withdrew $1000 to pay the attorney fees, because I forgot to bring a check, and they asked for around $1000 for attorney fees, I think it was $990.50. Anyway they just said that I could email them whatever other information I could later, once I got home.

So after we try to log into my account so I could give them more info on the source of funds and failed, the attorney comes in and he has the deed ready to be notarized and he explains to me the process and everything. So basically the deed will certify that I'm the home owner. All previous titles and history will be null and void with me as the new owner. The property will be valued at so-and-so, and so I have to pay so-and-so taxes for the property next year. Just basic stuff. He gets me to initial every page of the deed and sign the last page, and he gets the woman to do the same.

They told me congratulations, I'm the new home owner, and everyone in the room is happy. I don't even know the address of the place though. I don't know the postal address nor the physical address, they said to call the apartment/condo place to have them sort it out with me. I also have to pay a monthly HOA fee there. That's it though, no rent or anything else for the rest of my life. Well, there's also electricity and water bills, and Internet, but I guess that's it. And yearly taxes. So even though I own the home outright, I still have to pay stuff for it every month.

They also give me this gift bag with a bunch of stuff from their real estate company. They said "congratulations and welcome to the family!" it was such an awesome atmosphere. It was scary and stressful the entire time, seriously. But it finally finished.

Afterwards I drove there with my real estate agent and he came with me to pick up the realtor key that was there, and to also remove the "For Sale" signs and stuff. When we got there, so lucky, the caretaker of the property was there too and he talked to him in Spanish so I could get set up with the "beeper" to get in and out of the neighborhood, and also to get my mailbox and everything set up. The caretaker said it would be $60 for everything, but I didn't have that on cash at the time. So he just gave me the beeper and pedestrian key (to get in and out of the neighborhood pedestrian gates) ahead of time and told me to pay him later.

The real estate agent wished me luck and left. Because this is my property, I can literally do anything I want with it, including install new locks, install new doors, install new windows, paint it any color I want, install any appliances I want, anything and everything.

I wanted to get some Acai to celebrate, but something told me to go home first and email the last stuff I needed to. So I did that. I went home and emailed what information I could to the woman when I was finally able to log into my account from my home computer, and she also told me that I forgot to sign a page. So I drove back there to sign it. It is like 2:30 PM at this point, several hours have passed.

When I go back there, she gets me to sign the page, and she also commented that the new information I sent her was also not really good enough, but since it's the only thing I can provide, she would submit it. Like, that's really all I could provide in all honesty. Anyway, we talk for a long time afterwards, I ask her how I can set up electricity and water for that, and she told me to go to the company that provided electricity, bring the deed and ID, and they would come and set it up. Same for the water. And same for the Internet. The Internet would be last priority obviously. Also there already is running water for that location, which is weird. I guess the bank is paying for that, for now.

She said I was so young to be coming from America to live on his own, and she said "you're what, 24?" What a compliment I thought, like I'm 27. So I take that as a good thing. Is it common for 24 year olds to come here and buy properties in cash? She didn't make any comment on me buying it in cash, but she was more surprised that I would leave my family and everything to come here. Anyway she wished me the best of luck and everything. I don't know why or how she was so nice here, but she was so nice. So freaking cool and helpful. She was like "I wish for you the best here that everything will work out and be fantastic," like wow, what did I do or say to get such well wishes?

I even asked her like, "what is the best Internet company here?" and we talked for like 10 minutes about the different companies. And we even went up to the front desk receptionist to talk about it. What....! She was so helpful, seriously trying her best to help out. What an amazing person, seriously. But I thought she was so mean in the emails initially, because they were so cold and "official". In real life though she's so casual. Wow. Very cool person.

Also I liked how the attorney dressed. He looked like a stereotypical attorney or lawyer if I imagined one. Like, older, black / dark gray hair, glasses, wore some brown vest or cardigan or whatever, I don't know what it's called, but I got like "detective" vibes from him. He also talked like a lawyer, omg. Anyway if I lost some weight I could dress as nicely as him. I could dress as nicely as him now, but really I think I look like this round blob blobbing around no matter what I wear. I am honestly not even that fat, but I somehow see myself as this blob, blobbing around, all the time. Weird.

So afterwards I head out, and I walk into the nearby bank again to withdraw $100 so I could pay $60 to the caretaker for the beeper and for him to set up my mailbox. I still have no idea what the physical address and mailing address of the home is. I have no idea. Well, I have some idea, I know what my building number and home number are, and I know the name of the condo and the city it's in, but I don't know the street or zip code, and I don't know how all of that fits together.

I pick her up, she gets in the car and just puts her head on the dashboard. No usual greeting of a hug and kiss on the cheek from her, so I wait for a bit and she notices me probably wanting it, so yeah she sighs and we hug and she kisses me on the cheek. We talk about stuff, she goes back upstairs to get something, and then we head out. We start heading to some place to eat, pretty much all the vegan restaurants closed at 3 PM, but there are still some open, I start to drive to one but it turns out to just be this grocery store, and she's like let's just go to Old San Juan, because there's also a bunch of restaurants there, but it's 40 minutes away, whatever, we start driving there.

We talk a lot on the way about a bunch of topics. We drive by this Sizzler she says is supposed to have a great view, so we check it out. It does have a great view, but she wanted some soup and after checking them out, all the soups unnecessarily had animal flesh in them, and so we decided not to eat there. There's this Olive Garden sign in visible from where we parked, so we go there instead.

The place had this very cool atmosphere, obviously I've eaten here a bunch of times already, but wow, it was such a different theme than usual. The place was also practically empty, we were basically the only ones there, so that made the atmosphere look that much better. We order a bunch and eat there, all vegan except one item that had cheese. The food there was pretty good, "unlimited" salad, minestrone soup, and breadsticks. Sure it was "unlimited" but after just one plate of each of those, it's already enough to feel full before the main course even came. We talked a lot about a bunch of stuff. Even about possibly having kids in the future, because it might happen, but reminds me not to get my hopes up or expectations too high because it's not certain, and I know that. She mentioned she had a dream where we had a daughter.

Afterwards we drive over to Office Max because she has some stuff to resolve there. That takes like an hour, maybe.

Then we go over to visit my home, and yeah we check the place out. So it's dark and there's no light anywhere since there's no electricity, so I use my phone's flashlight feature while we check out the place. She comments that it's really spacious and clean and everything. She likes it, I do too. It is such a cool place to live in. Anyway, great, as we're checking the place out, we enter one of the rooms and look out the window. You can see this house right across the street, and you can see the second floor balcony glass doors of my neighbor. They placed these nightmarish looking designs on their balcony window door with aliens on them screaming and looking terrifying.

I couldn't see it though, she could. So I was like, no way, is that really there? So she takes out her camera so she can zoom in so I can see it. And wow, it terrified me. I grabbed on to her really tightly as she was taking a picture of it and it first came out blurry, but you could see the images of it forming. Keep in mind it's all dark everywhere, and silent, and right from the windows you can see some terrifying alien monsters. I was scared so that's why I was grabbing her. I take a picture of it on my phone too, and it's scary. But you get used to it. I need to get some window blinds so I longer see that.

The worst part is that you can see it from another bedroom too!! It's even worse in the other one.

Anyway, we check out the place some more, I use the bathroom and pee, and yeah. The place is nice and cool. There's a bunch of plants and random stuff in the "backyard", I guess it's all mine. I don't know what I'll do with that random stuff, but okay. Yeah, so it's weird, it's like I'm expecting someone else to somehow go to the backyard and clean up all this stuff, but that's all me. That's my responsibility.

So anyway, I drive her back home and we hold hands on the way back. I offer her trying to like live with me for a week or something just to try it out, while she still having her own place. She says that was a good idea and wants to try it out. I want her to try it out too. We might meet up again tomorrow if she's not busy.