Short sale update

[house]

Good news: we finally heard back that the house is ready for inspection.
Bad news: The appraisal came back 10K below our offer. (Ugh, I told DH to start low but he won't listen. He offered the LP! Who does that! :@ Unless its a super deal but it wasn't that great of a steal at the listing price. Whatev, DH! And of course now he is re-thinking his offer because he doesn't want to pay more than appraisal value. Inspection is next week so I guess we have to wait till then to figure out the re-negotiating the price. I am frustrated with the whole process. It sucks!

[dlphndoc]

You won't be able to finance more than the appraised value of the house anyway. So you can either submit a new offer or pay the difference out of pocket.

[house]

Um not paying out of pocket. Definitely resubmit a new offer depending on how much work it might need. We will see how the inspection works out.

[lolc]

I don't think that is bad news at all considering you are working with the bank and no longer with the "sellers." Sellers are more likely to put their foot down and demand their asking price regardless of appraisal. Banks, not so much. Not if they have the appraisal figures in black and white.

With our short sale buying experience, our sellers OK to our asking price was just the initial "get us in the door." I think that if they were selling "regular" - they probably would have haggled more with our price. We offered 10k below asking price because we did our own "comp" research and found it was well priced. We don't know what their bank appraised the house at, but their bank accepted our offer (after over 2 months, ugh). Then our bank did their own appraisal and it turns out the house appraised at 10k over what we will be paying (so what the sellers listed at).

Anyway I say its not a bad thing because if the seller's bank did their own appraisal, they likely appraised the same. They will probably sell you the house at the appraised value, but I wouldn't expect any concessions to be made based on inspection. Unless something comes back really horrifically wrong, they are probably selling it to you 'as is.' This was our case but from what I understand it is the case with most short sales.

[sillygoosegirl]

My RE agent says when the appraisal comes in low like that, you just insist that the sellers come down to that price. Normally they will because nobody is going to be able to get financing for more than the appraisal, and nobody else wants to pay more than the appraisal anyway.

[house]

Thanks lolc! I needed the explanation! I have no idea of how things work in the REA other than the minimal basics. So Yay! Its all good then! Yes the house is "as is" but we still have to make the decision to spend money on upgrades. I am not expecting concession but it will still affect us because we don't have a lot of money to renovate or remodel.

[house]

So apparently the siding of the house is damaged which is why the house appraised for 10K lower at 110k. Until that is fixed the house is not worth inspecting. So our REA and the mortgage guy said that the bank either need to get that fixed to keep our offer at 125K or lower the price to the 110k to go on with the deal. But neither REA nor mortgage guy thinks that the bank will lower the price! How can the bank sell a property if a buyer can't get a mortgage more than its appraisal value??! :@ This is upsetting. We haven't heard back from the bank yet. So I think there's still hope but DH said we have to go back to house hunting. GRRRR!

[house]

Aww! Thanks! The house has been sitting empty since last October, abandoned. I hope the bank lowers the price or fixes the damage! Apparently the bank wouldn't pay for the de-winterization. The sellers had to pay to turn the water and electricity on so they must be upset with them too!