ID, checkbook, one last confirmation.
The wire had gone out the day before. I asked what else I needed to bring to closing: identification, paperwork, a checkbook, anything I had missed after months of mortgage requests.
The morning of the closing I had my ID and checkbook with me. I sent one final note asking whether everything else was ready. If the answer was yes, I would see them there.
That was it. The transaction at 60 Broadway closed.
I had spent the previous few months looking at apartments, making offers, moving money, signing a contract, and chasing a mortgage commitment that kept getting stuck in underwriting. At one point the seller had the right to walk if the bank did not finish in time. Two transfers required 104 pages of documentation. Every time the finish looked close, another request appeared.
Now the residential real estate transaction was complete. I wrote that it felt like a giant weight had come off my shoulders.
I was excited about the loft itself, but I was also ready to stop thinking about the purchase process every day. There are only so many times you can check whether a document arrived or whether another person needs another version of the same record.
The timing was funny. I was deep in conversations with Reonomy, a commercial real estate data company. The same night the closing finished, I joked that I could finally stop working through the residential side and start learning about commercial real estate.
First I needed to enjoy the simpler fact: the closing happened. The paperwork was done. The loft at 60 Broadway was mine.