This past week I had an appraisal issue with a buyer sale. This involved a home that had 3 offers on it, one was cash, and the other two were with financing. The sellers decided to take our offer with financing and gave us seven days to remove all of our contingencies and we gladly accepted after speaking to the mortgage lender. He assured us that he can make this happen as the buyers loan had already been in process. The appraisal was done using a automated value model and was completed on Tuesday, we had our value on Wednesday! One problem, the appraisal came in under value by approx. 5% of the sales price. Fortunately, the buyer had a very large down payment and the appraisal would not affect his terms of his loan which already had been locked in at a rate of 5%. The lender ordered a full walk through appraisal of the home and fortunately the home came in at full value of the accepted offer price.

We were able to remove all of our contingencies within the seven days as we had cooperation with the HOA that provided HOA docs within 5 days and with Homeguard Inspection Company as they jumped through hoops for us by completing inspections (home, termite and roof) within 5 days and provided us with all of the written reports the following day after the inspections. The HOA was very responsive in our request for exterior repairs, they are even allowing Homeguard to do all of the work! This goes to show you that with teamwork between agents, lenders, inspectors and HOA companies that great things are possible, it is not often that you can remove all of your contingencies within seven days with financing and an HOA involved!

This home is scheduled to close on time, November 12, 2009! I learned a few things on this transaction. The first is that cash offers are not always preferred, the main reason is most likely that cash buyers are not always willing to pay the asking price or above. I also learned that not all HOA companies are slow to respond. Did you know that HOA companies, by law, have ten business days to provide the buyer HOA documents? Most of the time the HOA companies take the full amount of time allowed by law and many times it is the last thing that buyer’s are waiting for before they remove all of their contingencies.