To make a long story short, I lost my position with River Valley Special Consortium and had to find a new School Psych job. Since there were no positions available in the River Valley Area, my search had to expand to a state-wide level. Eventually I found a position with Greenbrier Public Schools, which is two hours from our home in Van Buren, but closer to my wonderful sister, my marvelous parents, and my husband's awesome children. So, this meant we had to move. We searched and searched and undoubtedly tried the patience of our wonderful real estate professional, Nicki. We made an offer on an beautiful property in Conway, but after much deliberation, decided that we MUST have that underground house in Greenbrier. Should be a piece of cake, right? We had prequalified for the Conway place, so purchasing the underground home should be no problem as the price was not as high. Ah, the naivety of new home buyers.
Financing the underground house has been a nightmare. The main issue with this property is that there are no "comps". Lending organizations use comps to determine the value of a property via an appraisal. An appraiser goes to the prospective property, takes a bunch of pictures, measures things and gets a general idea of what the property IS. Then, he or she compares the property with similar properties which have sold in that area within a certain time frame. If they cannot make a comparison, say, for example, there have been NO sales of underground homes within the last six months, then they cannot make comparisons and the lender will not finance that property.
It has been my observation (and I have done A LOT of searching to find financing) that lenders either cannot think outside the box, or not allowed to think outside the box. No comps = no appraisal = no loan = no new house. Now, I have spoken with mortgage officials in states other than Arkansas who have worked with underground home buyers in the past, and they assure me that it CAN be done, but the appraiser has to really work at it and phrase things in a just-so way; experience with underground homes is also a huge advantage. They also assured me that new regulations have made it almost IMPOSSIBLE to finance non-traditional dwellings.
Sadness all around.
We have been fixing the house in which we now live (and plan on keeping as a rental property) and hired a jack-of-all-trades/handyman/really good carpenter to solve some tricky repair issues. He has done a WONDERFUL job and truly earned every penny we paid him. He listened to my moaning and complaining and general grief about the financing issues with the underground house. He also related his home purchase story. He recently bought a run-down, ramshackle used-to-be-something older home in Fort Smith. As the place was virtually caving in, no bank would finance it. (They don't like fixer-uppers, either). So what did he do? He assumed the mortgage on the place via a VA loan.
After weeks of trying to find financing with absolutely NO results, the assume-the-mortgage idea seemed like the only viable alternative to NOT getting the house. I presented the idea to Nickie, the realtor, who presented the idea to the home sellers. The truth is that if WE could not find financing for this home, then neither could anyone else. The only way they could sell this home was to a cash buyer - and I think they are probably few and far between.
The sellers, realizing that they might perhaps NEVER sell their home, approached the mortgage holding bank with the idea. I can't imagine what the owners said to the bankers, but apparently it worked. We are now waiting on the paperwork. We will still have to qualify for a loan with the seller's bank (Wells Fargo) and will have to pay the difference between the selling price and the seller's equity in the home. I think we're good to go. Now we just have to wait - but at least the wheels are in motion!
If and when we move, I'll post pictures. I have a lot of plans for that place!
