The Appraisal and Loan

As you can imagine, anything I talk about regarding "home loans" and "appraisals" and "the housing market" is going to involve interjectory phrases like "since the market crashed", "before the recession" and "in this economy". We are currently wrapping up our application for our home loan and let me tell you I would have loved to go through this process with "the housing market" "before the recession" because "since the market crashed" "appraisals" and "home loans" "in this economy" are limited.

Fannie & Freddie Ain't Buying Anything Weird. Here's the scoop. (I'm not expert, so bear with me.) Most banks sell their home loans to Fannie and Freddie. Right now homes that are cookie cutter on a small piece of land are the only types of homes that Fannie and Freddie are buying. If a house has a large shop, acreage, or doesn't fit into the cookie cutter itself for some reason, they are considered more of a risk. As a result, the banks then have to take on these homes in their own portfolio, which basically means they are kind of doing YOU a favor.

Our House is Weird. Since our home is of "contemporary design", which is "not common in Spokane", the appraisers are not able to provide comparable houses in the area for the bank to evaluate. This makes our home unsalable on the secondary market, and therefore the bank will have to keep our home loan in their personal portfolio. As a result, the bank has all of the negotiation power on the loan, and this means our loan options are limited.

We Are Not Dead. Never fear. We are still getting a bang up loan when you consider the last 20 years. Other good new - our appraisal went really well. We exceeded our goal appraisal value with the house being in it's current state: not done! (We do have a checklist of items to complete by next week when the appraiser returns to follow up.) Though our appraiser surprisingly was a fan of modern design, we still feel like the whole appraisal process is so dated. Points are still given for square footage and how many bedrooms and bathrooms there are. You would think considering energy costs alone that we would see a paradigm shift giving valued to homes for the quality of the building envelope, monthly utility costs, and renewable energy resources. You know - built with integrity. But, we are not. Yet.

Until then, here's a picture of a pillow in our living room that reminds me of this post - a smug little bird on a soap box.