I've been through two other closings (Micole's first), neither were as painful or difficult as this one. Until a few weeks ago the whole process seemed to be moving smoothly. It started with a low appraisal on the property. The appraisal came in substantially less than the county had appraised it for tax purposes, which we found very odd. I read the appraiser's report and truthfully I can't find anything wrong with it except that his judgement always goes to the low end of the spectrum.
What is an appraisal? It's someone's opinion of what a property is worth. If you had ten appraisers you would likely have ten different opinions. I really think this appraiser was at the absolute low end of the range. I'm an accountant and what accountants are trained to do is establish and measure value. So I ran the numbers about 16 different ways and I came up twice close to the appraiser's number, but I also came up with numbers that were substantially higher. Even higher than we needed the appraisal to be, to do the financing the way we wanted. With the number he gave us we had to redo the whole purchase contract and find a new way to finance it.
One way the appraiser assessed the value of the property was to look at sales of similar homes in a one mile radius. He then compared those properties to our soon to be home. Our home he appraises at the low end of these other houses. I looked up the county tax appraisals for each of these properties and found out that each of these houses sold for at least 4% higher than the 2004 tax appraisal. The property we're purchasing he appraised about 5% below the 2004 appraisal. So my thought was what gives? I suppose the county could have been overestimating the value of the property, but I doubt it. Heck, our original agreement was 4% less than county's estimate, but we didn't even get that from the appraiser.
I've run on enough about that appraisal. My co-worker in the adjoining office has heard me rant enough about it already. What burns me up a little bit, is that they didn't take our concerns about the valuation of the property into any consideration. It was just like "Well, you have to get the price down... You're overpaying...." There was no way to challenge it. For our sake it didn't really matter if the price was a little more or a little less. If it had appraised where we feel it should've, the deal would've been done by now, sans headaches.
In the end, we're going to be paying a little less than we would've based upon the original financing plan. It is a better plan, but even if the contract on the house was at the original price, it still would have been less. I don't know why the mortagage broker couldn't have put this plan in front of us at the beginning. It would have saved us a little aggravation.
So that's me, frustrated, but nearly done with this process. I will never recommend Countrywide Home Loans to anyone. They weren't horrible or completely incompetent, they just weren't very good.
Cooper's mood changes so fast from satisfied to upset to bored to crying to happy...
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It can all happen in a matter of 20-30 seconds.
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This look represents how we sometimes felt about Countrywide.
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He's on his tiptoes. I wouldn't be surprised if he takes his first steps by Christmas.
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1 comment:
I agree with the Countrywide Home Loan. I refinanced my previous house with them - it was a nightmare. Never again.
As usual Cooper is soooo cute. That is amazing that he is getting ready to walk so fast! Looking at him makes me remember last Christmas with Jack. That first Christmas is so special! Enjoy it!
And Congrats on your new house! How fun! Now you get to move - not fun!
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