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Home Blues
Oct. 3rd, 2012 04:09 pmIn my last entry, I mentioned how the move process was going. I also said we were supposed to be closing on September 26th, and moving shortly thereafter.
Well, it's October 3rd, and we're still in our old house.
What happened? Well, pull up a chair, and I'll pick up the tale where I left off last time.
The Inspection
As I mentioned in the previous post, we sold the house. And, as is common, the buyer of the house wanted to get an inspection done on my house. No problem. It worried me a lot because we had just found (and fixed) the leak in the chimney, and I had no idea what else might be lurking to be fixed. But, you do what you have to do, so they did their inspection on Monday, September 10th.
Now, according to the contract, they had 3 working days to present me with a list of repairs. Well, Wednesday and Thursday came and went, and I thought we were in the clear. Then, Friday, they finally get me a list of "requested repairs." and I very nearly blew a gasket. I fully believe their inspector to be batshit crazy. Here were some of the "requested repairs":
In the end, because I have to work with this guy, I ended up agreeing to fix 12 minor items. Most of which was done in a weekend and was completed thanks to [Bad username or site: koakako's help. @ livejournal.com] Fortunately, they agreed. Could have done without the drama.
Comes The Appraiser
As I mentioned in a previous post, the new house we are buying doesn't have a garage. It was the model home for the neighborhood, and, when the builder built it, they finished in the area that would have been the garage. We wanted to keep that because it adds enormous square footage to the house.
It's also his last property in the neighborhood, so he's under a lot of pressure to get it off his books. So he's selling the house at a massive discount. We're buying the house at $76 a square foot, when most of the stuff in that neighborhood has been going in the mid $80s. We were confident that we could write the contract for above the purchase amount of the house and escrow the remaining amount (essentially, borrowing against the equity the house would already have at closing because it's so underpriced) and use that to build the garage.
So we had everything set up with the loan. But their appraiser dragged his feet for the maximum amount of time he could before going out there (he had 10 business days and waited until the 10th day, then tried to reschedule - my realtor told him that he couldn't and we were closing in 3 days). According to my realtor, he had a foul attitude about having to drive down, and didn't spent a lot of time there.
Then we get the report back. He refused to value it any higher than the MLS listing, which is fucking retarded. The MLS listing is so low you couldn't rebuild it for that price. It's worth more than that in materials alone! (Not even kidding about this - every insurance estimate I've gotten has been almost 1.5x what we're paying as the estimated rebuild cost WITH the garage factored in).
Then, the mortgage broker informed me that, even if the appraiser had approved it, they would not have done the escrow in spite of us having been completely upfront with them from the very beginning about what we were trying to do. At the last minute, they were just like, fuck you.
That was Monday the 24th. We were supposed to be closing in the 26th. Everything fell apart that day. I'm not even kidding - I had moving vans arranged! I had the utilities scheduled to be in my name. Everything had to be stopped while we circled the wagons and figured out what our next move would be.
Starting Again
So, this time, we're taking a little bit different approach. First, we're talking to an actual bank, and not a mortgage broker. We're getting a construction loan for the full amount, buying the house, and then building the garage with the remaining amount on the loan. Then, we'll close the construction loan.
But people are still dicking with us. After we got all that set up, I got a call from the bank saying they couldn't send an appraiser out until they got drawings from the builder. Then they said they had the drawings, so I asked to see them. They had the wrong drawings. That took three days to work out, going between realtors, builders, and banks. Either way, it may be another 2-3 weeks until we can get into the house.
In the meantime, my wife is 8 months pregnant and looks like she could pop at any moment. Time is of the essence here, but nobody seems to be in any kind of hurry. I'm seriously losing my cool with it all.
The End
We also made a decision that this was the end. If something happens at this point, we are calling the entire deal off. All the way off. We are pulling our offer on the new house and pulling our house off the market. We'll wait a year until after Scarlett is born, then try this whole thing again.
All this stress has been absolute murder on me, and it's been holding us up from doing the things we need to do. I really hope it gets resolved soon, because both of us are just worn out of "one more thing."
Well, it's October 3rd, and we're still in our old house.
What happened? Well, pull up a chair, and I'll pick up the tale where I left off last time.
The Inspection
As I mentioned in the previous post, we sold the house. And, as is common, the buyer of the house wanted to get an inspection done on my house. No problem. It worried me a lot because we had just found (and fixed) the leak in the chimney, and I had no idea what else might be lurking to be fixed. But, you do what you have to do, so they did their inspection on Monday, September 10th.
Now, according to the contract, they had 3 working days to present me with a list of repairs. Well, Wednesday and Thursday came and went, and I thought we were in the clear. Then, Friday, they finally get me a list of "requested repairs." and I very nearly blew a gasket. I fully believe their inspector to be batshit crazy. Here were some of the "requested repairs":
- New driveway and sidewalk due to "cracks." Every fucking driveway in the neighborhood has cracks in them. It's a 20 year old house, and the driveway is in fine shape for it's age.
- Wanted the siding replaced. The siding was just replaced by the previous owner in 2005.
- Wanted a new roof because the roof vents were too narrow and the bathroom vent vented into the attic.
- Wanted some major work done on the electrical system. The electrical system is fine and hasn't been touched.
- Wanted the laundry vent line re-routed to be "shorter." The laundry room is in the middle of the fucking house. It's as short as possible already.
- They wanted the motherfucking chimney extended two fucking feet! Apparently there's some code that says chimneys have to be a certain height above the roofline, and mine was two feet short. But every house in the neighborhood built on the same plan has the same height chimney, so it was obviously okay when it was built.
In the end, because I have to work with this guy, I ended up agreeing to fix 12 minor items. Most of which was done in a weekend and was completed thanks to [Bad username or site: koakako's help. @ livejournal.com] Fortunately, they agreed. Could have done without the drama.
Comes The Appraiser
As I mentioned in a previous post, the new house we are buying doesn't have a garage. It was the model home for the neighborhood, and, when the builder built it, they finished in the area that would have been the garage. We wanted to keep that because it adds enormous square footage to the house.
It's also his last property in the neighborhood, so he's under a lot of pressure to get it off his books. So he's selling the house at a massive discount. We're buying the house at $76 a square foot, when most of the stuff in that neighborhood has been going in the mid $80s. We were confident that we could write the contract for above the purchase amount of the house and escrow the remaining amount (essentially, borrowing against the equity the house would already have at closing because it's so underpriced) and use that to build the garage.
So we had everything set up with the loan. But their appraiser dragged his feet for the maximum amount of time he could before going out there (he had 10 business days and waited until the 10th day, then tried to reschedule - my realtor told him that he couldn't and we were closing in 3 days). According to my realtor, he had a foul attitude about having to drive down, and didn't spent a lot of time there.
Then we get the report back. He refused to value it any higher than the MLS listing, which is fucking retarded. The MLS listing is so low you couldn't rebuild it for that price. It's worth more than that in materials alone! (Not even kidding about this - every insurance estimate I've gotten has been almost 1.5x what we're paying as the estimated rebuild cost WITH the garage factored in).
Then, the mortgage broker informed me that, even if the appraiser had approved it, they would not have done the escrow in spite of us having been completely upfront with them from the very beginning about what we were trying to do. At the last minute, they were just like, fuck you.
That was Monday the 24th. We were supposed to be closing in the 26th. Everything fell apart that day. I'm not even kidding - I had moving vans arranged! I had the utilities scheduled to be in my name. Everything had to be stopped while we circled the wagons and figured out what our next move would be.
Starting Again
So, this time, we're taking a little bit different approach. First, we're talking to an actual bank, and not a mortgage broker. We're getting a construction loan for the full amount, buying the house, and then building the garage with the remaining amount on the loan. Then, we'll close the construction loan.
But people are still dicking with us. After we got all that set up, I got a call from the bank saying they couldn't send an appraiser out until they got drawings from the builder. Then they said they had the drawings, so I asked to see them. They had the wrong drawings. That took three days to work out, going between realtors, builders, and banks. Either way, it may be another 2-3 weeks until we can get into the house.
In the meantime, my wife is 8 months pregnant and looks like she could pop at any moment. Time is of the essence here, but nobody seems to be in any kind of hurry. I'm seriously losing my cool with it all.
The End
We also made a decision that this was the end. If something happens at this point, we are calling the entire deal off. All the way off. We are pulling our offer on the new house and pulling our house off the market. We'll wait a year until after Scarlett is born, then try this whole thing again.
All this stress has been absolute murder on me, and it's been holding us up from doing the things we need to do. I really hope it gets resolved soon, because both of us are just worn out of "one more thing."