And now for a kick from the appraisers office...

My New Yorkers' house didn't appraise at the agreed upon price. It came in 7% less. Many phone calls later, it looks like the previous owners "forgot" to pull a permit when they turned a screened in porch into an additional bedroom & den. So 15% of the square footage and one bedroom can't be counted towards the value. I've got the bank working on getting a re-evaluation of the property based on better suited comps since the ones the appraiser used were pretty worthless but I'm not holding my breath on that. No, my suspicion is that it's going to go one of several possible ways...

1.) The seller is going to reduce the sale price to the appraised price. In this option, my buyer will most likely have to pay their own closing costs.

2.) The seller can attempt to get a "permit after the fact" at a cost of at least $2,000 and a several month delay in closing, then hope the house appraises for the agreed upon price.

3.) We move forward, dropping the price enough to cover the $2,000 for the permits which my buyer will get after closing. Buyers will have to bring extra money to closing in this scenario.

4.) My buyers walk away and we start over again, hoping like hell we can find, get and close on a different house before the November 30th deadline.

I can tell you that the first option is probably the only one the buyers will readily agree to, and the one the seller is least likely to agree to.