Sorry for the Long Absence...

...but despair did indeed set in. Our second appraiser hailed from Discovery Bay, had never been to Richmond before; the day of the appraisal she complained to our agent F. that she had to appraise our place, a house in Oakland, and one in Walnut Creek, all in the same day, and had never worked in any of those three places. Not reassuring. F. did her best, sent many comps, more comps of comparable neighborhoods. The results came in on Dec. 1.: she appraised the house at $235K. $235K!!!! Pardon me, but if you show me a nice house in a nice neighborhood in the Bay Area that I can buy for $235K, I will buy it. I have never seen such a rare and wondrous beast

I mean, honestly, $235K? You should have seen the properties she used as comps in her appraisal - horrible! So now we have two supposedly equally qualified appraisers (both certified at the highest level); one who knows the area and appraised the property at $365K, and another from elsewhere who appraised it at $235K. I want to call the HUD office and scream, "Who is right???!" And isn't a $130K difference just a bit ridiculous? Have they made the system more flawed by insisting on random selection of appraisers?

We get on the phone with our mortgage broker and F. Can we go back to the first loan of $300K? And can we tell the selling agent the second appraisal, and tell him $300K is all we can offer? F. gets on the phone immediately - and the selling agent is once again a champ. He tells her he will do his best to get this deal done. Calls back several hours later, and says they will accept $300K, but we have to cover closing costs, and no new roof. It will mean more money upfront from us, but we'll save overall. Here goes again.