All Forum Posts by: Sarah Koning

Thanks everyone for your help! There are a few details I left out that may complicate the situation. The extra lot is owned by both a mother and son, while the house is only owned by the son. The son is planning a 1031 exchange on the house sale, so that is why there needs to be two separate contracts.

Sadly, we cannot adjust the prices between the lot and the house. The mortgage company appraised the house at $500 more than the selling price, so there is little room for negotiation.

We are young, PhD students, with very little extra money. The only other current assets we have are our Roth IRAs - which we have had less than 5 years - and we hesitate to use that.

At this point, I will need to look into seller financing. Otherwise, we have spent the evening crunching numbers, and we think we can come up with an additional 3-4k, maybe they will take pity on us?

Again, thanks to everyone who offered suggestions. After all of the advice I have received, my faith in humanity has been restored!

We are currently in negotiations to buy a house and extra lot in Chicago. The sellers - for various reasons - need to have the house and extra lot as two separate contracts/sales. Our mortgage company has stated that because we are not going to build on the extra lot, they cannot finance the loan (nor would most other mortgage companies?!). At this point, the purchase of the house is dependent on the purchase of the extra lot and we need to close by the end of the August. The purchase price of the lot is $20k and we can put down $10k. Any suggestions for how to come up with the extra $10k? Worst case scenario, would could take the money from our credit cards, but would prefer something easier and/or with a lower apr rate. We have excellent credit (low 800s credit score) and will be putting down exactly 20% on the house, so there is very little wiggle room.