This is my husband and I's first journey into the scary world of real estate. We found a great agent to help us find our home and a very go getter person to act as our lending agent.
We found a great little two bedroom bungalow in an up and coming neighborhood of Oakland. The currents rates have been so crazy this house was appraised at $510K just two short years ago and in January sold for $125K at a foreclosure auction. Now we are attempting to buy the house for $280k.
So we lock a rate with Bank of America and things seem to be going smoothly. We receive our appraisal from Landsafe which costs us $400 and they appraise it at the value we are trying to buy the house for, $280K. Great! Then a day later our lending agent receives a call from someone in Texas, a landsafe rep. Who doesn't like the Comparables in the areas. They order a second appraisal be done, yes another $400 out of our pockets. Our time line for closing is growing ever closer and we had already removed our appraisal contingency based on the first appraisal.
So we wait and we wait and we wait. They say they are rushing it. Days pass. The second appraisal comes in and guess what? $280K is the number they give us. So they (landsafe or B of A I am unsure) grind on the appraiser asking him why he didn't use the Short Sales and Foreclosures as Comparables? He says he doesn't know and guess what they do next? Order ANOTHER appraisal four business days before our closing date. Fortunately they do not charge us for this one.
It is a Friday all this happens on and the Appraiser speaks to our real estate agent and tells her he will go by on Saturday and do the appraisal and not to worry everything looks ok. He will turn in his report on Monday. One whole week passes! M T W T F, 5 business days. Our closing date has come and gone, no word. The president of our lending agents company has been on the phone with them almost every day. CEO's are called and yet still nothing is happening. Meanwhile everyone who we know who works in the real estate industry is saying they have NEVER seen this happen. I like feeling special and unique but this is one case where I just wanna blend in with the crowd!
The FOLLOWING Monday, our lending agent calls Bank of America to tell them we have locked with another bank, Chase, and we are moving forward with them. Bank of America responds by saying they have accepted the second appraisal value of $280K and the loan is being processed. One day passes and our lending agent receives a copy of the 3rd appraisal and it is valued at $257K, $23K less than we need it to be and the loan is NOT being processed. No one at Bank of America is taking responsibility for the false information and we in turn have to return to Chase and yet again have ANOTHER appraisal done. That is a total of FOUR appraisals on the same 2500 sq ft of property.
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