The process of securing a mortgage is a daunting, frustrating, difficult, even horrible experience. I understand the need for documentation, but some of the documents required are ridiculous. For instance, I had to make copies of financial reports that had absolutely no financial information on the pages. You see, if a report is 5 pages long, all five pages need to be sent. So I forwarded the page on the bank statement that is for reconciling your account. No numbers were on the page; no records were on the page; no information was on the page. But send it anyway. In a culture that is supposedly trying to do more for environmental stewardship, the amount of paperwork is staggering - and some of it is totally unnecessary. Still, I had to make copies, then either fax the information or go to the post office and spend up to $20 to send that information in priority mail. It was such good news to realize that as soon as I sent those documents, I got a request for other documents.

What I found through the process that was so disheartening, however, is that the process is really dehumanizing. To be fair, the people on the "front lines," the ones with whom I had direct contact, were very helpful and caring. But the system is anything but helpful and caring. Hurry up and submit the documents - and then wait without any information to find out if your loan is going to be approved. You can send an e-mail asking when this will happen, but the front line people are as much in the dark as the applicant is. It's all paper and numbers, but the humanity has seemed to leave the system. That is very sad.

And it is very sad because my experience has also been the experience of other people, and if the process continues to be so impersonal and uncaring, fewer people will seek to refinance a mortgage, and some might feel the way I feel, wondering why put yourself through something like this when you can rent something. Sure, the tax breaks aren't there (and we don't know if those tax breaks will continue, as some people are talking about doing away with the mortgage deducation on the tax forms), but it's a lot easier (though not easy) to just rent. Unfortunately, much of the American economy is based on the housing market, and with it being slow - and then the mortgage system being so impersonal and difficult - this is continuing to hold the economy back.

So banks make it difficult to get a mortgage - but at least the bankers will continue to have a hefty bonus at the end of the year. It's a hard job making things harder for others.

We are close to completing the process of purchasing a new home (and hoping our old home sells soon). I don't want to do this again for a long time. I'm developing a better understanding of why some people say that the time they move out of their home is when they are carried out feet first.

Karl Menninger, in his excellent book "Whatever Became of Sin," talks about corporate irresponsibility, how a system gets in place and no individual can be held accountable for the failings of the system. The system I have dealt with recently is broken and very insensitive to the fact that it is people they are dealing with, not just pieces of paper. Those in the corporate offices need to get out of their cubicles and start talking to real people, so they can understand how frustrating and disappointing the whole system is.

I hope you are happy in your home, and plan to be there a long time, so you don't have to go through what we've gone through.