A few months ago I gave a
little sneak peek about something Randy and I had in the works and it's time to finally come clean about our little secret. But it's not a short story, so grab a snack and get comfortable.
When Randy and I built our current home back in 2002 we NEVER dreamed we'd be here eight years later; that is unheard of in a military town. For several years we have wanted to settle in Huntsville, AL. We don't have family there and only know two people there, but we love the city, the lifestyle, the scenery, and the jobs are plentiful in Randy's line of work.
I've looked online for years at homes in the Huntsville area but had never found "the" house until this past December when I was in Abu Dhabi. The house was everything we had wanted and more and it was in our price range, albeit the very tip top of our price range, but still in there.
I contacted a realtor that was friends with our only friends back there and explained our story of looking for years for a home that said, "drop everything and move east" and asked her to preview the home for us to see if it was worth pursuing. A short while later she let us know it was even better in person and told us we needed to see this home ASAP. Problem was, I was in Abu Dhabi and planned to stay out of the country for at least two more months, but after talking it over with Randy, we decided Artem and I would leave early and travel to Huntsville to see the house.
After seeing the house in person, I submitted an offer that weekend. The owners of the house had fallen on financial hard times and were selling the home as a short sale. They had already pre-negotiated a price with their lender that was over $30,000 less than it cost them to build the home five years prior, so we thought it was a pretty good deal. We offered them almost $10,000 less than that price and knew it could take awhile because it was a short sale. But we weren't in any hurry since we would still have to sell our house here in TX.
The process was slow moving but was going really well. The inspector went out within a week and called me one afternoon after inspecting the house excitedly telling me about what a well built house it was, how he hadn't seen that kind of construction in all the years he had been doing inspections, that he doesn't see that kind of building quality in million dollar homes, and how people just don't put that kind of money into quality because they don't get their money out of it when they resell it. I told him the owners never planned on selling it but financially had to move and his response was, "Oh, that explains why it was so well built." We really felt like we were getting a great home which made us feel good since this was going to be our forever and ever home. The home we raise our children in, pay the mortgage off, and see our grand kids play in the yard.
Our offer was moving through the seller's lender without any problems and it was looking like they were going to accept our offer and then it was time for the appraisal. **Cue the dramatic music** There is a new way appraisals are done now thanks to a new Federal law that began in January; a buyer no longer has a say in their appraiser and the names of local qualified appraisers are put into a hat so to speak, and an appraiser is picked at random.
After such a glowing inspection we were sure the appraisal would come in higher than our offer and even higher than the original asking price. We were shocked when the appraisal came back $23,000 less than the original asking price. Not only that but the appraiser measured the square footage wrong. The current owners custom built the home and had the blueprints showing the house was 5100 square feet but the appraiser said it was less and only listed 3.5 bathrooms when the home has 4.5 bathrooms. He used comps that were over a year old and comps that had over 25% adjustments. I don't know what that last part means since I'm not a realtor, but I know it's not good. Another law prohibits a buyer from ordering a new appraisal, something called CCEV (Code of Conduct in Ethical Valuations) as it could appear that we are shopping for the best appraisal.
The sellers obviously weren't happy with the appraisal coming in so low and chose to appeal the appraisal. The appraiser redid the appraisal, went back to the house and remeasured, added the additional bathroom but only raised the appraisal by $8,000, still under the asking price and well under our offer. The sellers had no choice but to proceed with the new price and their lender accepted the lower price and was moving forward to sell the home to us for the new lower price. Great news for us!
At this point I started planning in my head and on paper how I was going to arrange our furniture in the home, planned what furniture I would need to purchase to furnish the home since we were going from our current 2,300 sq foot home to a 5100 sq foot home, started pricing movers, and finalized our loan paperwork. We were so excited to buy this house. It had a basement that we've always wanted, a gorgeous open floor plan, tankless water heater, laundry chute for the third floor bedrooms, a Proxima projector and movie screen in the theater in the basement, a full kitchen in the walk out basement with a full bathroom that has a door that goes directly outside to the pool, a three car attached garage, with a separate detached two car garage with finished bonus room above that garage, all on a huge lot that was just over 3/4 of an acre that backed up to woods. Like I said, this was "the" house that we were going to see our grandchildren play in.
But at the last minute our bank contacted us and told us that the appraisal didn't meet federal guidelines to carry PMI (private mortgage insurance) on the loan because of the comps that were over a year old and comps that had 25% adjustments on them. This time it was our turn to appeal the appraisal since we could not order a new one, and the bank let the appraiser know why it would not meet federal guidelines and asked the appraiser to provide three new comps so we could get the loan to go through. The appraiser came back with three new comps...2 were over a year old and one had adjustments of over 34% even higher than the first comps. Grrrr....
At that point the only way to get the loan to go through was to put 20% down on the home and avoid carrying PMI on the loan. That's just under $80,000 and we do not have that kind of cash on hand, especially without selling our current home first and double especially since we are going through an international adoption and need that cash to pay for the adoption. Both Randy and I refuse to take any money out of our retirement accounts and decided this was God's way of saying, "It's not your home to have."
Obviously we were very disappointed but we prayed for seven years for children and in the end God led us to Artem and we all know how awesome that story has worked out so we both feel like there is something better out there for us. We've even given serious thought to purchasing our own land and building a home ourselves. We aren't in any hurry and we know this is just a way to let us know to slow down, focus on the adoption, and focus on Randy's return to a job back in the states this summer.
And in the words of Bob Marley, "Don't worry 'bout a thing, 'cause every little thing, gonna be all right!"
