So we are going with the non-VA loan. Apparently he is really may be renting out the apartment illegally now, and the appraiser found this out by asking the guy who lives there. If the guy is part of the family, which I believe we were told, it could be a legal use, but doesn’t matter VA wants the entire kitchen dismantled and all parts removed from the premises and not returned.
We has another appraisal done independently and had the appraiser sit on it just in case we needed it. He faxed it to the alternative lender and we should be able to close on time. The good news is that it appraised to well over what we are getting it for.
Yup, the laundry room is raised about six inches off the ground (there’s a four inch step up from the bathroom inside) and the room itself is tiny, so an outside access to the “crawlspace” into which a Lilliputian midget would have a pretty difficult time crawling was deemed unlikely, and therefore the fabulous access hatch to nowhere was born. The sense of taking up four square feet out of 48 to make possible “access” to a space that no one could possibly get into escapes me completely, but I guess that’s why I’m not a highly paid government flunky. Aw shucks, I say…
For what it’s worth, I’ve bought a house a few years ago using the “Veterans Choice” loan from the Navy Federal Credit Union.
It’s for VA eligible people, but is not a VA loan. All of the financial terms generally match or beat that of a VA loan (e.g. no down payment, no mortgage insurance premiums–although you do pay a “funding fee”) but you don’t have to jump through any VA hoops.
The 1.5% funding fee for a Veterans Choice no-down payment loan is actually better than that of a VA loan (2.15% fee for first-time users, 3.3% for subsequent users).
I’ve heard other nightmares about VA loans. I know somebody who bought a new-construction house using a VA loan. He later sold the house to another VA-eligible person. The second VA appraiser required that the whole back yard be regraded at a cost of thousands of dollars, despite the fact that the yard had previously passed a VA inspection just three years earlier.
i’d just like to make one correction to your statement. the real estate agent is going to do whatever is in the best interest of THE REAL ESTATE AGENT.
doesn’t matter if you’re the buyer or seller. if you’re the seller, the agent wants to close a deal as quickly as possible, and will push you to make any and every concession conceivable. quick sales make them look good.
the drawbacks of you being the buyer have already been pointed out.
bottom line: never rely on anyone keeping YOUR best interests at heart when they stand to make a buck off the deal.
I have been trying to do as much research on my own as possible. I am finally getting somewhere it seems. The seller has agreed to to the electrical upgrade to 200 amp and let us pay just the difference between 100 and 200 amp service. I have to work out the details of payment, for which I plan to consult my lawyer, but I am not too bothered.
I would be a lot more upset about this VA nonsense if I had not found that zero down 30 year loan with no points and no pre-pay penalty and low pmi compared to other loans I looked at. I am fairly comfortable with this loan company because a good friend refinanced twice with them. She now has an enviable rate and is quite happy with the terms and the customer service.
Good point. I just wanted to make the point that people, who contact an agent to find a property, and then think the agent is a “buyer’s agent”, acting in their best interest, are mistaken and it can be a costly mistake.
The reason I am using an agent at all is that I was not prepared to draw up the offer letter and contracts. I did have my lawyer review the contract. It is also nice to have someone to talk to their agent. I hate talking to relative strangers on the phone. I am satisfied with the price I was able to negotiate and since that is agreed upon it is pretty much in everyone’s interest to wrap this up on time.
She did me the additional favor of finding a good selection of houses to look at and compare and talked me out of seriously considering houses which I liked but were not readily habitable.