Man up, WHAM-thud !!!

After being forced to look at the pictures of the two players from this mornings contest I felt the need to do something macho.  What better fits the bill than another 300 work out?  I am imagining a routine where I do 300’s every Wednesday, do regular weight workouts the rest of the weekdays and then follow up with running on Sundays.  Now that would be a pretty complete exercise routine. Today’s workout was tough but slightly more bearable than the week before.  I expect that trend to continue if I am able to keep it up.

WHAM!! THUD!! is the sound of our refinancing effort slamming into a wall and dropping to the floor.   I got a call from our loan officer telling us the appraisal came in low, very low, some $140,000 lower than the current property appraiser valuation.  I knew that the appraisal could be a bit lower than what I estimated however I had no idea it would be that low.  Our area has a TON of foreclosures.  How can you get a fair appraisal of a home if it is being comp’d against foreclosed homes that are in various states of disrepair?

The loan officer said he spends most of his day calling back potential refinance customers telling them their appraisals came back way low.  As a result of the low number, the amount we could refinance is cut way down to the point where we couldn’t even consolidate the existing debt we had planned to.  Of course the decision was not the loan officers, Fannie Mae has strict numbers that it is willing to loan based on appraised value.  He said I was welcome to do some research on my own to see if I could find some better comps and send them to him.  I sent him a few but I don’t really expect it to have much of an effect on the bottom line.

Of course this is very frustrating and disappointing. Ali and I struggled back and forth with the decision to refinance or not for a long time.  Once we finally decided to do it it was a foregone conclusion that we would be approved. We were excited to make a drastic cut in the monthly nut we would HAVE to pay as well as having some extra bucks to knock out some home improvement projects.  We have stellar credit, steady employment and are stable.  I don’t really see what good an appraiser is doing by low balling the number if it makes both the bank and consumer miss out on the financial gain to be had from refinancing.  Oh well, f them.