I should have known. I should have known. I should have known. Everything was going along too smoothly. Things were working well. Life was good. I should have known that things are never that easy. Especially for us. Yes, the house buying thing has gone cactus. After house-hunting nearly all year, busting our arses trying to be careful and thorough and sensible and doing tonnes of research and everything else. We finally found a place we liked for a price which seemed reasonable. It all seemed right. But no. I should have learned by now that things never work that way. Yesterday at work I had a call from the mortgage broker. The credit union who we are meant to be getting the mortgage from sent their valuer to the house and he has valued it waaaaaaaayyyyyy lower than what we paid for it. (This freaked me out but having spoken to a few people in the last 2 days it seems that this happens a bit. One of my work colleagues had their property valued at $80,000 below what they paid!) Now I know they have to be overly conservative and really they have to sort of quote the lowest possible price they would get if they had to sell the place (ie if we forfeit on our loan payments) and I guess they have to allow for the possibility that we might trash the place a bit too. I think their valuation is complete bollocks and I'm not worried that we're paying too much. But....
The issue is that the Credit Union (and most lenders) will only let you borrow a maximum of 95% of the value of the property. But that is based on THEIR valuation of the value, not what you pay for the place. So the amount they are now willing to loan us is not going to be enough. We are basically left with three options: 1. Go back to the seller and try to get him to reduce the price. The theory is that he might do this rather than have to go through the hassle of putting the house back on the market. Hmm seems extremely unlikely to me! 2. Try and argue with the valuers or get a new valuation done in the hope that we can increase the perceived value of the property. Again, seems very unlikely. OR... 3. To make up the difference between what the credit union is now willing to lend us and the amount we need, we could pluck the extra money out of our.....well, out of somewhere.
Oh and technically there is a 4. which is: Cancel the sale. Not only do we then lose our deposit which we've spent 5 hard years saving for but we also run the risk that the seller can sue us for the difference between what we offered and what they end up selling it for. Plus we've then got to start from scratch saving a new deposit and hunting for another house. NO THANKS!
So as you can imagine, yesterday was not a good day for me. I was crying a lot and ended up coming home early from work with a big fat headache.
On the plus side...
Things are looking slightly brighter today. There seem to be a few more promising options opening up to us. Our solicitors called and said we may have a chance of negotiating with the seller because they told us the car space was included on the title and it's not. So maybe they will be willing to reduce the price at least a little bit for that. Also I was speaking to the girl at work whose property was valued at $80,000 under price. She told me that they ended up going to a different lender and it all went through. She's given me the name and number of the person she dealt with who has said he's more than happy to chat to us. Another woman at work has a sister who works in a bank and she's given me a number for a woman in her department who looks after home loans. So I'll try calling both of them and just see what the possibilities are.
The other thing is that if all else fails - both our mums have offered to loan us the extra money we need (or half from each of them) Which is lovely of them, but I can't help but feel guilty - even though I know they both really want to help.
Let's talk about something else! OK well today was my last day of work for the year. Yay! We all got given a bottle of wine which was nice. I also got some Christmas cards and choccies from different people. We had lunch at Silver Thai up the road which was nice too.
We're just hanging in there and working hard to sort it all out. I'm sure we will get there in the end. It's just going to be a bumpier road than we were expecting
Oh that is so sad what has happened about the house-i'm sure it will all work out o.k in the end(playing the pollyanna glad game here)-it's good that your parents will help if need be.No one needs this kind of stress,especially at this time of year!(About mondo rock-would have to say that my favourite of theirs would be "state of the heart"-watched it on countdown.That song actually brings me to tears everytime-has such a sad sound about it,even thought it's quite a hopeful lyric.love love love it.)Chin up AC,it'll be O.K.-just wait and see.
Thanks guys. Fraid we didn't put the clause in Zaph. Don't ask me why though. We've been so thorough and careful about everything else up to this point but for some reason we didn't think to put that clause in. The lenders were falling over themselves to give us money and were willing to lend us almost twice what we actually wanted. We the had the pre-approval all confirmed. So it didn't occur to us that there could be a problem with the finance. In any case we don't really want to drop out of the sale altogether because we still really want the house. We may have a case to argue with the seller though because the place was advertised as having a second car space on the title and it's not on the title at all! It's common land belonging to all 4 townhouses in the block. So we might be able to get them to reduce the price a bit for that (especially if we make it seem that we are considering backing out of the sale altogether on the grounds that the contract was incorrect) Anyhoo. We'll see what happens.
Daftbird I love state of the heart too! It has such a fantastic tune to it.
Chin up AC i'm sure everything will work out and you will certainly appreciate the house when you eventually take ownership after everything you guys went through to get it. fingers crossed
i just came in to read the comments here,then went "back to AC's journal" where i realised that it was number 200-WOO HOO!!!!!!!!!-and so came back in again to announce it.
Bloody Hell AC. My mum knows a woman who lives in South Australia and her story has been on Today Tonight a few times. Sold a lot of land next her house the house she had been living in for 40 years and unknown to her the lot she sold was actually the land her house was suppose to be on. She didnt know that and the council want her out.
AC
I should have known. I should have known. I should have known. Everything was going along too smoothly. Things were working well. Life was good. I should have known that things are never that easy. Especially for us.
The issue is that the Credit Union (and most lenders) will only let you borrow a maximum of 95% of the value of the property. But that is based on THEIR valuation of the value, not what you pay for the place. So the amount they are now willing to loan us is not going to be enough. We are basically left with three options:
So as you can imagine, yesterday was not a good day for me. I was crying a lot and ended up coming home early from work with a big fat headache.
Things are looking slightly brighter today. There seem to be a few more promising options opening up to us. Our solicitors called and said we may have a chance of negotiating with the seller because they told us the car space was included on the title and it's not. So maybe they will be willing to reduce the price at least a little bit for that. 
The other thing is that if all else fails - both our mums have offered to loan us the extra money we need (or half from each of them) Which is lovely of them, but I can't help but feel guilty - even though I know they both really want to help.
We're just hanging in there and working hard to sort it all out. I'm sure we will get there in the end. It's just going to be a bumpier road than we were expecting
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