We've found another house, made an offer and had our inspector out. Everything is going swimmingly until the bank's appraiser comes out. The list price was 120k, we offered 115k and it was accepted. We thought this a good deal for us compared to the other houses we had looked at in the neighborhood and the good condition of this home. The appraiser came out and said the home was worth 108k tops. He is out of his mind. I did a search for similarly sized homes in the same zip and found ONE listed under 110k (just barely) and its blurb read as follows:
GOVERNMENT OWNED!!!! For sale in AS-IS and WHERE-IS condition!
Anybody know what "where-is condition" means? Anyway, it didn't sound like a real winner. The owners of our future house had it appraised last year for $125k and all the appraiser had to say was "well, things change" what a chump! The seller's realtor wound up contacting him and showing 4 homes that recently sold in the area and what they sold for, then he was reluctantly willing to change. I have no respect for this guy. When he first refused to change his appraisal I thought "what an ass, but at least he's a principled ass!" When he changed the appraisal later I realized that this guy just didn't do his job. The worst part is, we paid him for the privelege, almost as much as we paid our kick-ass inspector. Anyway, the realtor says things are ironed out now and we'll get the final numbers today.
Comments (4)
Where-is basically means the same thing as as-is -- that they're selling it in its current condition, aren't going to fix any problems you may find, and won't accept any liability for problems you may find later.*
Sounds like a pretty shitty realtor... I mean, I know prices on houses are currently dropping fast, but if there were comparable sales in the area for similar amounts to what you wanted that's pretty meaningful.
* With the exception of anything you can show they intentionally hid, which they are liable for. We actually had an example of this when we found that what we had thought was an oddly placed air intake vent was just a vent cover screwed into the wall over a hole where somebody had kicked through the drywall.
Posted by Austin | May 24, 2007 1:24 PM
Posted on May 24, 2007 13:24
Just to be clear, the realtors had nothing to do with it. It was the appraiser hired by our lender that's the problem. It turns out that getting things worked out meant firing the appriaser and sending out a second one at our lender's expense (along with a little apology from the lender). So, he's still a principled ass by my standards but an ass nonetheless.
Posted by Leonard | May 24, 2007 2:24 PM
Posted on May 24, 2007 14:24
Hey, Leonard. Nice looking kid you got. I notice no posting after he was born... heh. that happens.
Oh, this is "Phill the Corps Guy" from cepheid. btw.
How'd the house hunting work out?
feel free to drop an email, I'm reaching out to my old cepheid friends so.. [reach...]
hi to Margaret for me.
pb
Posted by phill | September 26, 2007 10:12 AM
Posted on September 26, 2007 10:12
Hi, Phil! The house is going great although renovations have slowed down to a crawl now that Teklo is here. No big surprise. We're loving the trees and the big backyard and the neighborhood and the feeling of ownership. It's great!
Posted by Margaret | October 8, 2007 4:13 PM
Posted on October 8, 2007 16:13