Any home lending experts here?

[twinmill28]

We're selling and about to close on our house in two weeks when our realtor tells us the VA appraisal came back 11000 under the contract price and that we'd probably need to negotiate to close the gap.

This morning our realtor sent an addendum that the buyer now wants to pay the new appraisal price plus they'd cover the title fee that we were originally going to pay ($3700). It's about this time I realize I've never seen the actual appraisal and am just taking our realtor and the buyers realtor word about the 11k gap, so I asked to review the VA appraisal. Shortly after, our realtor (who I've now come to distrust for various reasons through this process) emailed what appeared at first glance to be a short version of an appraisal and on closer read was actually the lenders "Notice of Value" (NOV) that says their authorized VA Appraisal reviewer had reviewed the VA appraisal and determined that our house was worth the 11k less than contract price. The lenders "NOV" is a document that I believe was crafted to simulate an appraisal to keep people from asking questions if they're not paying attention.

It's now at this point that I realize the buyers lender has attempted to take control of the bus and is now trying to drive the sale of our house at their price!

The difference in cost with the buyer picking up the title fee would be 7300 that they want us to eat if we agreed to their current offer. This seems like a pretty negligible amount of money for their lender to screw us out of so I can't figure out what they are up to other than helping the buyers get a better deal on the house.

My question is as a seller, am I entitled to a copy of the VA appraisal? The VA has a process in place where I could challenge the appraisal if I feel it is inaccurate, but hell, I'm not going to challenge something that I don't even know what it contains. Right now my grudge is with the sellers lender who seems to be trying to flip the tables and sneakily get a better deal for the buyers.

As a lender/broker/realtor what's your input on this? Is this really how lenders do business on a VA loan? It's shady and puts a bad taste in my mouth

Hope I captured everything, I tried to be brief but concise.

 

[Bigunit]

You ate absolutely entitled to a copy of full the appraisal. Your Realtor is required to provide it to you as he is your agent.

 

[twinmill28]

The realtors position right now is that since the buyer paid for the appraisal, it's at their discretion if they want to release it. Our realtor is supposed to be contacting the buyers and their realtor again to see if she can convince them to let it go.

Everything I've tried to find on the internet regarding the appraisal does not address this as it probably shouldn't even be a question.

Our first reaction was to counter the buyer offer this morning and split the difference which would put us eating just over three grand out of the deal---not bad, but total BS if that's how the lender has determined they want the sale to go. I don't want to walk away from the sale on this since the numbers are relatively small, but I do want to seriously expose this for what it appears to be.

 

[twinmill28]

Hey Biggie, you seem to be pretty good with tribal stuff, ever dabbled in real estate law? :wink:

 

[Renagade132]

Can you have a lawyer get involved? Even if you just use him or her to know your legal rights and what you should do.

 

[chaos254]

Your definitely entitled to a copy of the appraisal especially since they are using that to adjust the contract price.

I have learned that real estate transactions suck. We have been under contract for almost a year now. Our seller saw the appraisal of over double the purchase price and they have been doing everything to try to back out of the contract.

 

[Mb30sdl]

I think if difference is minimal you can accept their offer and close a deal. I don't know market in FL but out here i lost a short sale house cause of 5K. difference.

 

[Blue]

Twinmill28,
If your Realtor is not working in your best interest you can fire him or her, 2. Are you willing to reduce your asking price by that mush if not counter offer to meet both yours and the buyers comfort level or needs. 3. if your price is cast in stone, move on to another buyer./ Realtor, if you can provided you did not sign a exclusive right to sell.

 

[Bigunit]

Twin, call me when you get a chance. Maybe I can help.

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

It's a contract, it's all negotiable. Since your Realtor seems to be playing games, tell him to eat some of his commission to make the deal go through. You don't have a right to the inspection agreement; but you do have the right to say "no thanks" to the buyer... when I beat up the seller on my house, I gave them the report and said "okay, now what?" We got the house for a better deal...

 

[twinmill28]

More of the story----
We got a copy of the appraisal--these appraisers have no idea how to deal with a walk out basement in Florida and so used the main two floors above ground for most of the appraisal (2100 sq. ft). Basically we lost a good chunk of appraisal on the 1400 square feet that's only halfway under ground (two bedrooms, two baths and a kitchentte in addition to another den and living room plus tons of storage--all finished. To complicate things, nothing comparable to our house has sold in the last six months, the comparables are an ugly stretch to fit our house size and location.
We sent a counter offer to the buyer to have them cover half of the difference, about 3 grand. It hasn't helped a bit that my wife told our realtor how much she needs to get out of Florida to California to be with me and we need to close on the house. It helps even less that the buyers realtor works in the same office with our realtor and I'm sure they're both talking about how they know we'll settle with the lowered price just to get my wife out of town.
So after the buyer refusing to move on the new price, we attempted to get the realtor to split the difference with the buyers realtor on the 3 grand (my wife was a realtor in Utah for 3 years and that's how she helped close on a sale like this). Now go back to how the realtors know we want out of this house to get my wife to me and they refuse to give---each has a chance for an 11K commission and won't give up 1500 on it!!
The best part is our realtor called last night to tell my wife that they work hard for the commissions, blah blah blah---so my wife told her to just tell the buyers we'll accept their ****ty offer and FU to the buyers and realtors! I really wish she wouldn't have done that, but she was a couple beers into it when the realtor called.
I know we can flush the whole deal, and in the process fire our realtor, but again, the amount is so negligible that it seems dumb to walk away, put the house on the market again (it was pulled from MLS listing when it went to contract) and wait some more.
So we just accepted the low offer and will roll with it. We have truly been blessed with this house and are still coming out on top. Karma has a funny way of coming back around to people anyway......

 

[3Hummers]

Glad it sort of worked out Twin. I would have told them all to FO and blown that deal up. ( and I did once in the past ) got to do what you have to do.

 

[twinmill28]

Thanks 3H's---I've been away from the family for 4 months now and another 3 until my daughter finishes school and they can head out. That's a big part of the decision. If we flush the deal we go back to waiting for another offer--not really worth it to chance being away from the family any longer.
Trust me--if I had my way I'd love to tell the realtor the deal is off and she's fired, get your sign out of my yard. The thing that makes it personal for me is that I'm buying a dirt bike out of this deal and it pisses me off to watch my mad money going to a couple greedy realtors. The house is worth full asking price and and is a damn good deal at that, both realtors know that, so getting an extra 11k off just makes everybody but us happy.
Anyway, we should be closing in two weeks, so holding my breath until then--nothings in stone until the note is payed in full.
I appreciate you guys being a sounding board for me, that helps the most.