It seemed like a sweet deal. Only three days on the market, and we had two competing offers in on the house. Both offers were full price and nearly identical. I asked each agent if they had any information to add to help my sellers make a decision. One party replied that they would drop all inspections. Yippee! Full price, no inspections, no seller’s help. Sounded pretty good.
Then we got hit with the appraisal. It was $15,000 below the offer price. I knew this was ridiculously low. The sellers had replaced the roof, put in a new sidewalk, added new flooring, painted, updated the electrical and plumbing, etc. We requested a second appraisal, but in order to do this, the buyer had to change her financing from FHA to conventional. With FHA, the appraisal stands for 6 months. We pushed off settlement so the buyer could get everything in order to change her financing.
We waited for the financing change before the lender could order the second appraisal, which caused many delays and rescheduling of closing. We sat on pins and needles until, finally, the appraisal came in at full price! Then more hiccups with one of the sellers going out of town, another settlement delay, difficulties getting all the paperwork in. I got the last required piece of paperwork the morning of closing.
So, after two appraisals, three changes to the settlement date, a delay of over six weeks, and lots of tension all around, we finally made it to closing.
The point here could be that my sellers didn’t lose $15k because they were willing to persevere. On a broader perspective, it’s a reminder that good things don’t always come easy.
