Banks Agent is SUPER flaky
Hello all!
A listing went up for a bank-owned townhome for $123k, I offered $115k but was outbid. A month later, the banks agent contacted my agent to see if I was still interested and we said yes. My agent asked him what happened to the original buyer and he only said that their financing didn't go through. Anyways, I counted my blessings and they accepted my original $115k offer. Everything went well until it was time to order the appraisal.
My lender notified me that an appraisal was already done for the previous buyers a month ago and it valued the home at $97k. Since it is FHA, which is also the type of loan I have, it sticks with the property for 120 days. So my lender and agent questioned the banks agent on why he didn't disclose this with us and what was the real reason why the deal with the other buyers fell through.
The banks agent said that as of January 2017, HUD had changed the rules and appraisals are only good for 30 days now. None of us had any idea that this was actually a HUD home nor did we know about the rule change. So we asked the agent to send us something showing the updated rules. He sent it over and said, "Here's the rule change but this is NOT a HUD home". WHY WOULD YOU BRING UP THE RULE IF IT DOESN'T APPLY TO THIS HOME?!?! That's when we figured out we were dealing with a shady agent.
We then reminded him about FHA 120 day policy and he said that I can either come up with the extra $18k or walk. Now I'm furious because I've paid $300 for the inspection and $350 for the appraisal and all of this could've been avoided if he had told us about the appraisal upfront.
At this point, my attorney is reaching out to the banks attorney. I know banks are eager to get foreclosures off their hands and this agent is going to have them loosing more money if he continues cycling through FHA buyers and not disclosing the appraisal or budging on the price. If I had an extra $18k, I wouldn't be going through FHA. In fact, the exact townhouse a couple of miles down has been on the market for a year because the HOA does allow FHA, so the same is going to happen to this one because the majority of buyers are FHA.
What can we do about this shady agent? Do you think the bank will be satisfied with what he's doing once my attorney gets a hold of theirs? I really want to go around this guy.