Better House News

This past Monday the second appraisal on the house was completed and we found out that the value of the house is $2,000 higher than the first appraisal estimated, so there's no problem with the seller backing out of the contract.  The seller agreed to continue with the sale and we're on track to close on or before August 3.  In less than two weeks we'll have our first house!

One of my sisters got to see the house yesterday and she sees how good the house will be for our family.  I'm not getting too excited yet because the deal still isn't complete and there's still a chance that something could go wrong, but there is a huge weight off my shoulders because now I don't have to worry about finding another house or about extending our lease at our current apartment (or finding another apartment to live in).  I can resume picturing myself and our family living in this house and decorating it and such.  This makes the stresses of living in a crowded apartment more bearable since the end is in sight.  I am happy.

House Discouragement

We received some frustrating news today about the house we're in the process of purchasing.  Everything is fine on our end, on the seller's end, and with our lender... but the mortgage insurance company came back today (2 days before our closing date, by the way) and said that the appraisal on our house is too high and the process won't continue until we get another appraisal done and it comes in lower.

Our lender tried to get them to tell him where they think the price should be since they don't think the price is correct as it is, but they gave some b.s. answer like, "Oh, we're not allowed to divulge that information," or some crap like that.  But will they send out their own appraiser?  No.  They just want us to get another appraisal that's lower.  I would love to yell at them.  There is nothing wrong with the price of our house; I think the house is worth its current listing price and we are very willing to pay that much.  But there have been appraisal issues all over the state in 2012 so this isn't a unique situation; we likely would run into this issue with any house we try to buy.

Mc explained it to some friends of ours in an email and here's what he said:

"Back in the years 2005-2007, a housing bubble expanded.  Prices rose which silver-lined the pockets of brokers, banks, and appraisers alike.  This was capitalism and greed at its finest.  Why were house prices rising so fast?  Well, it was a self-feeding cycle in which people thought prices would continue to go up, so they were willing to pay more to obtain a house which they KNEW would appreciate.  

"Appraisers bought into this hype and appraised house values higher and higher.  Since they use 'comparable sales' as their baseline, it seemed to make sense.  A house that sold last week for $270K and then 3 months later for $300K must indicate prices are rising, so they would appraise the houses in accordance with the trends.  

"In reality, it was a bubble.  It burst in 2008 and banks would not loan and people would not buy houses and appraisers were slapped on the wrist.  Many banks and lenders, now saddled with a lot of bad mortgages, decided appraisers could not be trusted and required more stringent scrutiny.  

"Fast-forward to today and you have appraisers who are more conservative and banks/lenders who feel they cannot rely on the third-party, independent analysis of appraisers.  So, they will always ask for additional comparable sales and then, if they don't agree, reject the appraisal.  The market in Phoenix is appreciating.  Houses are disappearing very quickly (we know, we've been looking).  However, the values have not been allowed to appreciate because of this appraisal issue.  Despite the fact that we are completely credit-worthy, they won't lend us the money because they feel the house is not worth as much as it was appraised for."

What I'm worried about is that the seller has significantly lowered the asking price for us once already.  The appraiser determined that the house was originally overpriced by about $20,000 and the seller agreed to reduce the asking price down to the appraiser's price.  Now the mortgage company is saying they'll have to lower it again, and I'm worried that the seller will chose to cancel the contract rather than reduce the price again.

Our realtor has been wonderful and he's working hard to try to get this deal to go through.  I really hope things will work out.  I don't want another house, I want this house; it has everything I wanted in a house and yard and I will be so sad and frustrated if I have to start a house search all over again.

Even if things do end up working out, we'll be stuck in this apartment for at least a few more weeks, and I am NOT looking forward to that.

After All These Years!!

For years now, almost 2 decades, I've been trying to remember the title of a children's book I loved as a kid.  I couldn't remember the title of the book, the names of the characters, or most of the plot.  All I could remember of the plot was that there was a man looking for a flower which would save the woman he loved and he finds it growing amongst some rocks.  And this picture is what has stayed in my memory for all these years:

That, and I remembered the flower so well because there was a closeup of it on the page before:

Pretty, isn't it?

A few days ago I decided to search for the book online, but I didn't have much to go on.  After a couple of hours spent doing a Google search for "rose with pearl in the middle" I changed my search to "flower with pearl" and came across an excerpt from a collection of stories and I knew this was what I was looking for!

It is a German fairytale by the Grimm Brothers called "Jorinde und Joringel".  I was so happy!  But all I could find was the original fairytale in a collection of other Grimm fairy tales, and I was certain that as a kid I had read a stand-alone book (and I knew I had read it in English!).

So then Part 2 of my search was to find the stand-alone book I had read as a kid.  After about an hour I found this on Amazon.com and I was SO excited because this is the book!

After literally decades of wondering in what book I had seen that flower, I finally found it!  I immediately ordered a copy from Amazon.com and it arrived today.  The pictures are lovely, the story is captivating and interesting, and that flower is beautiful.  Joy!!