Financing Challenges

We hit our first little snag today when we got the appraisal back.  We're using a FNMAE loan for our permanent financing, and have a bridge loan so that we can re-fi into the permanent loan.  The bridge has a high interest rate, so we want to get into the permanent loan as quickly as we can.

The appraisal listed the house as Average Minus, because it has a fair bit of deferred maintenance.  This wouldn't bother us except that Fannie Mae won't finance a house with a Minus rating.

Here are a few pictures showing the deferred maintenance.

Water damage above fireplace.

A little mold and garbage downstairs.

 

Basement bathroom is filthy and has holes.

The downstairs shower will be the only hard thing to fix, but we need to get it looking decent appease the appraiser.

Siding needs to be patched up.

Retaining wall needs to be replaced and deck railings are broken.

We'll need to do some improvements to get the house up to Average.  The good news is that Justin's job is basically buying junker homes and fixing them up so they qualify for conventional financing, so we can do this fairly quick and cheaply.  The unfortunate part is we're going to gut the home, so any repairs we do right now will be ripped out when the remodel starts.  We can live with that, it's all just part of the process.