Chateau Papillon

Monday morning's closing went off without a hitch--so we're now the proud owners of "Chateau Papillon!"  After months of waiting (between the three-and-a-half months it took from our initial offer and winning acceptance from the seller's bank for the short sale to the month of getting ready to close--not to mention our other misadventures in real estate), we're chomping at the bit, so to speak, to get our new home ready and to move in.

First things first: this is, after all, Chateau Papillon, so we've several steps to make it a friendly home and yard for Didi and Chance.  We've gotten a few bids for fence construction and are moving forward with a privacy fence (both for our sanity and that of the neighbors--we want to prevent as much barking as possible!), compliments in part of Beth's mom, P.A.T., who wanted to give us a fence as a housewarming gift.

Next, the carpet has to go; once either doggie or any of their friends mark, it would become a sponge for pee.  The basement is getting environmentally friendly, sustainable cork; the bedrooms are either getting their existing hardwood refinished or will be receiving a new coat of solid bamboo (again, a "green" floor--sense a theme?)  Beth and I will be doing all the work, so within the limits of our finances, we'll largely be going with new floors vs. refinishing (it's actually cheaper that way--refinishing can cost an average of $5/sq. ft. and is a task we'd contract out, whereas our bamboo and cork cost, respectively, $2 and $3/sq. ft., and is a task we'd tackle on our own).

And there's repainting; not necessarily a task done for the benefit of the papillons, per se, but something we want (and in the case of the pink princess rooms, need for our own sanity).  And let's not forget the many small details that need to be addressed with any new home.

I can't wait to get back from my last business trip of the year and get to work!  Beth's already hard at painting prep and painting itself for the basement, and there's so much carpentry I have to get to, too.

Chateau Papillon!

More "Bank Time" Is Giving Me Ulcers

Beth and I are scheduled to close on our home purchase on November 10th.  Yet I'm still in a state of constant anxiety and stress over the whole thing.  Why now?  "Bank time" again rears its ugly head.

You see, we still have not gotten the loan commitment from our lender.  Despite assurances from everyone involved that this is a "clean" and "vanilla" loan and that it could be done in "10-14 days," we're now well over 20 days and still don't have the commitment in hand.

I've wired my closing funds to the settlement agency; Beth has gotten the rest as a cashier's check.  We've gotten insurance; we've arranged for the changeover of utilities.  Beth is even ordering some cork flooring to be delivered to the new home so that we can get the order in place in time to get several discounts before they expire.

Worse, the investor approval of the short sale expires on the 14th.   You see, in a short sale, the home sells for less than the sellers owe on their mortgage, meaning the bank (and its investors) will take a loss.  Thus they have to approve the sale, and the terms of the approval for this one are good through next Friday only.  Now, it's quite possible to get an extension; that's not impossible and comes up fairly often in short sale transactions... but given it took three months to get initial approval, I don't want to risk additional delays and potentially losing the entire transaction!

Why the delays?  Our lender claims their underwriting department is "swamped" with closings from last month (apparently themselves delayed!)  Fine--but we have to have ours in place; we can't just delay at this point.  Everyone involved claims there are no problems, but Jesus Christ!  Give me a break, people!  If there are no problems, commit the loan--the funds HAVE to be wired to settlement in time for Monday, or we can't close!

I hate real estate.

Chateau Papillon, Here We Come!

Anyone who's kept up with this blog will know it's been a long, stressful summer as my wife and I have worked to buy the perfect home.  For the past three months--all visits to view "backup" homes aside--we've been waiting out a short sale.  That is, the sellers want (or in this case, need) to sell their home, but it's worth (significantly) less than the outstanding mortgage balance(s), and the bank must approve the "short" payoff of the loan as part of the sale.  That payoff is the only short thing about a short sale: our offer was in front of the bank for over three months.

Finally, this past week, we started to get good signs the sale might actually happen.  Technically, the listing agent had promised we'd have everything in writing over a week ago, and even took the sellers out looking for a rental home, but it wasn't until today that we got the official, ratified contract and short payoff approval from the bank.

(Long story there: Beth and I had done some courthouse sleuthing on the loan and property and found the originator had filed for Chapter 11 a couple of years back, but SEC filings for the mortgage lender showed the servicer... and though the listing agent would never share that with us, our sleuthing was indeed correct!)

So... we're moving forward to buying our first home together, which we've dubbed, appropriately, "Chateau Papillon."  Between our "deux Papillons adorable," Didi and Chance, I'm sure you can see the inspiration for the name.  Wish us luck as we go forward now; the only remaining snag could be if our loan appraisal comes in under the sales price (a real risk, given the falling market values in our area); if that's the case, we'll have to negotiate with the seller's bank for the lower purchase price--which might entail cutting the agents' commissions, something we don't want to see happen.

The Short Sale Black Box

A black box is a system for which you can see the inputs and the outputs, but cannot make out any of the inner workings; you can't tell what's going on inside the box, or how the things going in are turned into the things coming out.

Dealing with a short sale is like that systematic black box; we've got the inputs (our offer) and the outputs (eventual acceptance / rejection of said offer), but no way to tell what's going on inside. And that's incredibly frustrating.

Worse, because the inner workings are hidden, it's impossible to even tell what the effect changes in the inputs might have. Property values are falling--does that mean the bank will be more likely to accept our offer, knowing our FHA financing is only good if the property appraises for what we offered? Should we exercise our short sale contingency and issue 72 hour notice of withdrawl--will that have any effect?  What about factors well beyond our control, like the $700b Bush bailout package--will the asset managers who have to sign off on the deal wait and see what they can get from Uncle's teats, or will they move quickly to unload this property and deal with the devil they know?

It's impossible to know, and the opacity is only heightened by having to deal with a listing agent instead of directly with the bank.  We have to send our questions to our agent, who in turn calls up the listing agent, who has to poke and prod at his own black box of the bank's loss mitigation contact, and in turn funnel the answers back to us.  Each step obscures the process even more, cutting the signal to noise ratio exponentially and making it even more difficult to construct a picture of what's going on.  We have to rely on what the listing agent tells us, an added layer of abstraction from the already-opaque bank black box.

As I discussed in comments on a prior post, to any reasonable evaluation, our offer is quite sound and should be something the bank would be thrilled to accept (in so much as they'd be thrilled at taking any loss).  But despite my knowledge of the whole short sale process--something I've researched to the ends of the earth--it's impossible to tell where in the black box things actually are.  We at least found out several weeks ago that the mortgage insurer was reviewing the deal--something we'd not even thought part of the original equation--and now, the insurer seems to be in agreement... but we're still waiting.

We've asked whether the sellers are still current on their mortgage, something the listing agent has repeatedly refused to disclose (perhaps rightfully--though at some point, a default on their part will be a matter of public record).  Even if he were willing to speak on that point, though, it's really just another input to the black box, one for which we have no real notion as to the impact on the output.  On one hand, if the sellers are current, the bank will clearly be loathe to make a quick decision--so long as the cash is flowing in, they have less incentive to deal, after all.  But on the other hand, being current could be good in that their mortgage may be classed as less distressed than so many others, and thus less likely to be quickly sold (via bundled securities) to Uncle Sam, something that would likely be an effective death sentence for our chances of buying the home.

So it's back to the waiting game, and bank time.  The listing agent is touching base frequently with the bank; the bailout bill is now law, though its impacts and mechanisms are far from clear; and our agent will of course haggle the listing agent even as we continue to look at alternate properties as backup.  In the meantime, I'll try some more to stare into that black box and make out something of the shadowy gears that are turning (or not) toward some sort of output.

Screwed By the Bush Bailout?

Anyone who's read this blog will know my wife Beth and I have been trying to buy a home since May. First, I had to sell my townhome, and my buyer defaulted then finally closed nearly two full months past the contracted closing date--costing us at least two homes--one of which we'd had an offer accepted on, and another we couldn't even make an offer on due to the townhome delay. Next, we found the perfect house, but like so many on the market, it was unfortunately a short sale--and the only "short" thing is the mortgage payoff for the seller's bank; time-wise, short sales can drag on for months on end.

The recent financial crisis in the United States and the subsequent bailout plan proposed by the Bush administration--where the US Treasury Department would buy up troubled, often "toxic," mortgage-based assets from banks and investors to help ease the logjam in the credit markets--was something I initially viewed as disastrous for our chances of buying the home we wanted. Banks were rubbing their palms together in anticipation of Uncle Sam buying up their distressed assets and securities at far above market prices (which had fallen so severely to as nearly be inestimable), meaning, I suspected, the banks would suspend their short sale deals in the hopes of getting more from the taxpayer's teat than from any other buyers.

However, as the public and then Congress balked at simply plunking down a trillion taxpayer dollars on a blank check, I personally thought the banks would rush to make the deals they could and deal with losses they could put to paper, and not the vague possibilities of a better (or now likely worse) deal from the government.

Indeed, the listing agent felt so confident in making the deal work for our home purchase that he guaranteed our agent a steak dinner should he fail to deliver by this past Wednesday. (Note that was not exactly his first promise; neither I nor Beth felt particularly confident in the agent's bravado, as he'd previously promised a deal "by the end of the week" and then at the end of that very week complained our agent was harassing him.)

Of course, Wednesday came and went with no deal, and when our agent got hold of the listing agent on Thursday, the listing agent expressed the belief that now the bank was hesitant to sign on anything while uncertain about the bailout plan.

That brings us full-circle; two weeks ago when the Bush administration first came forward with their plan, I despaired that the Treasury Department had sunk our chances of buying, yet over the next weeks grew more confident the terms would be so poor for the financial institutions that we'd end up with a deal soon. Now, the listing agent himself has stated those same fears.

At this point, even if a deal passes today in the US House of Representatives, the impact will be unclear, and if the bank is truly waiting on the bailout, it could be several weeks before the terms of the bailout are known. And if (this is a big "if") the government purchases the security backed by our seller's mortgage, it's a whole new ballgame; no one knows how long it will take the government to establish any notions of how to handle the sales of individual homes, if at all.

So... we may be screwed, on a very personal level, by George W. Bush and his administration, the last in a long line of disastrous mismanagements by our "first MBA President."

Sigh--Delays, Delays, Delays; Or, Working In "Bank-Time"

I haven't posted an update on the house hunt in several days--largely because there hasn't been anything to update.

A couple of weeks back, we found out that the bank has mostly agreed to our offer, but were negotiating with the mortgage insurance company. Now, I'd thought given what we knew about this home and its mortgage situation (having done courthouse research on that very topic) that there likely wasn't mortgage insurance involved; the owners were sub-prime borrowers, after all, and refinanced their 80-20 mortgages (both of them ARMs) into a single adjustable-rate mortgage a couple of years ago. Apparently, they financed at 100% (or more), and even though the bank in question (California's failed OwnIt Mortgage) wasn't known for asking for mortgage insurance because it so quickly sold every loan it originated, the owners ended up with PMI.

That throws a bit of a monkey-wrench into a short sale. Why? Well, if the bank were to foreclose, they'd collect on the mortgage insurance policy, which typically insures up to 17% of the loan's original principal. That could mean that the bank might get a better deal by foreclosing than they'd get with a short sale.

Depending on the policy, the mortgage insurer may have to cover a portion of the bank's loss even in the case of a short sale, not just for a foreclosure (this is a pretty common situation from what I understand). Thus, the mortgage insurer has to okay the terms of the short sale, too. And that's where we stand at present.

Now, to me the negotiations should be simple. The bank says to the mortgage insurer, "Look, we're going to either do this short sale or foreclose. You're paying one way or the other." I would assume the only point of negotiation from the insurer should be how much they're willing to pay; in other words, "Hey, bank, you're taking a smaller loss with this sale; how about we pay a proportionally smaller claim, too?" (Aside from this, the insurer can go after the owners and ask them to sign a promissory note for the insurer's loss in paying the bank's claim, or otherwise hold the owner financially responsible in some way--though a good bankruptcy attorney will deal with that unsecured promissory note in short order...)

So I don't get why we're still waiting, two weeks and counting, from when we learned the insurer was involved in negotiations. The math is simple; by my calculations, the bank is approximately $30,000 better-off taking our short sale offer than foreclosing--a figure which grows every day, mind you, as the uncertainties of the housing market drag down the value further; Zillow estimates for the value of the home have already fallen $4,000 in the time we've been waiting on a decision.

Worse for the bank is the fact that the sale has to satisfy the FHA; the FHA isn't going to approve our loan if they're paying more than the property is worth. And every day the bank delays lowers the chances the FHA will be able to approve the upper end of our offer. With falling prices, the bank not only increases the loss they'll face at foreclosure but increases the chance our offer will no longer be available to them.

But we're in "bank-time" now, a strange quick of quantum mechanics and special relativity which twists what should be a decision of hours and minutes into weeks and days. I dealt with "bank-time" in the sale of my townhome, where Wachovia spent days on end on an "emergency rush" loan twiddling their thumbs and not getting the appraisal scheduled, so I'm no stranger to the concept, unfortunately.

I'm not going to even go into what the troubles at insurer AIG along with the uncertain prospects of the Bush and Paulson bank welfare act ($700b - $1t of taxpayer money on a blank check--pay no attention to that man behind the curtain; look at the monkey!) might mean in terms of delaying our home purchase. I can only hope the bank (and its insurer) haven't said, "Hmm, let's suspend short sale approvals for the time being to see what we might get from Uncle's teat." They'd be fools to take the certain numbers of our offer and trade them for the uncertainties of some government bailout.

Of course, there's also the risk now that the joys of the collateralized debt obligation (CDO) world and their mortgage-backed securities will result in the sale, as part of a large group, of the loan to another bank altogether, meaning we'd get to start over.

Sigh.

No, Real Estate DOES Still Suck

Still no progress on the home we want to buy at short sale; the listing agent keeps promising "a few more days" on the bank's decision, yet gets snippy with our agent for "bugging" him when he doesn't return calls. I'm beginning to have my suspicions that the sellers are still making their mortgage payments and have yet to go delinquent.

If the bank is Litton Loan Servicing (and from courthouse research the last mortgage deed of trust was with a bank which went under shortly thereafter but whose SEC filings show Litton as servicing their remaining loan portfolio), I have read that they often encourage prospective short-sellers to keep making payments and that they'll go ahead and consider/approve the sale. NOT! This is a lie by the bank to keep getting a few more dollars from the sellers before foreclosure--though you can't blame the bank for trying to make more money when you're asking them to take a loss. But if the listing agent has advised them to keep making payments, listening to the bank's "advice," he's a fool, and we could be in for a long wait indeed. The bank has absolutely no incentive to approve a short sale while the loan is not delinquent.

Anyway, that rant aside, Beth and I did a drive-through of the neighborhood we're targeting and checked up on several of the homes we've followed, including the one we lost twice due to my bad townhouse buyer. You see, that home had never shown up in the Fairfax County land records as having been sold, despite the seller kicking us to the curb in favor of another offer despite our assurances we could close on-schedule and that the townhouse sale closure was imminent (the buyer's bank had, after all, committed the funds; it was only a matter of getting a few papers signed and the checks disbursed). So we were understandably curious what had happened.

Lo and behold, we noticed a "For Sale By Owner" sign out front, along with a "For Rent" sign, and a search of Craigslist showed the original seller was indeed trying to rent it out! Why hadn't they checked back with us to see if we were still interested, we wondered?

Our agent did some checking, and indeed, the sale they'd kicked us to the curb with did fall through, because the seller refused to compromise on the price (and, in retrospect, he's overpriced by at least $18k for the current market, given some of the work that needs to be done like a new breaker box and upgraded electrical service, insulation, and double-paned windows).

Needless to say, this information does not thrill me in the least. Though our originally-targeted home could now be our backup should this short sale drag out much longer, there is absolutely no way I am going to give the seller the price he wants; materially, it's too high given the work that needs to be done (and that doesn't include cosmetic stuff like removing the wall-to-wall carpet he for some reason installed over decent wood floors, refinishing the floors from the carpet installation's damage, erecting a fence around the yard, etc.) And I feel somewhat vindictive as well that we were kicked to the curb twice on that home by the seller; once for a lower-priced offer simply due to our sale-of-home contingency, then again for another lower-priced offer despite assurances (in writing, including the funds commitment letter from my buyer's lender) that we would be able to remove said contingency within a matter of days.

Sigh. Real estate still sucks.

Still Waiting on the Bank

Just a short entry today to update the home buying situation. Mainly, we're still waiting to hear from the bank and get the contract ratified so we can get the real business in gear. Our agent had thought we might hear something this past Friday, and I thought perhaps today, but nothing yet.

We did the home inspection today, something of a risk for us in that we had to fork out $450 on a home we might not end up buying, but still a necessity since our contract had no home inspection contingency associated with it: banks tend not to consider offers contingent on inspections, and regardless won't fix most problems found anyway--so we had to know what we'd be getting into.

The good news is that there weren't any serious faults found: a missing shingle here, a slightly bent vent pipe there (both leading to the potential for water damage, and with evidence of some slight water entry but nothing serious). But the roof was fairly new (4 years old), nothing structurally at fault was found, and only a few safety issues the FHA would require be corrected before backing our loan. Pretty much all the other faults I can fix on my own, or with the assistance of some general contractor relatives.

The inspection also gave us a chance to go through the house again; it was a good refresher as to the layout and let us both get a better idea for what we'd do upon moving in. I took photos, and Beth grabbed measurements of the windows and rooms; we've quite a stock of curtains bought as our local Linens 'N Things went out of business with no real idea as to where they'd go or how many we'd need.

Of course, the listing agent hadn't informed the homeowners. They were out, fortunately, and our agent let the inspector in via the lockbox. Right as we were finishing up, though, the owners came home to the surprise of finding all of us in their home! Nothing new there, I guess; the listing agent hadn't let them know we were coming on either of our previous visits to look the place over. They apologized for the "mess" (if you consider a near-Zen existence "messy") and were understanding, anyway. I feel bad for them losing their home; they're very nice folks... but I'm also going to be selfish enough to realize they're in danger of being foreclosed, so better Beth and I get a chance to buy the home than it go to a bank. Either way the owners will lose the home.

Hopefully, we'll go under contract in the next couple of days. I have to think if the bank wants the place off their books this quarter, they'll have to sign on the dotted line this week to give us any reasonable time to close and the sellers time to move. Then again, with the upcoming holiday weekend, who knows if the decision makers will be available until next week?

Progress at Last? (Or: Could Real Estate Not Suck So Much?)

Yesterday evening, I got a call from my agent with an update on the home Beth and I want to buy (recall from a prior post the home is a "short sale," and thus can take a looooong time to even get approval to purchase). Tentatively, I'll chalk this up as "good news."

Gene told us that the listing agent had at last gotten feedback from the bank, and that the bank was likely to accept our offer and want a 30-day closing, and that the listing agent wanted to confirm we were still interested & ready to buy (as if getting weekly calls and needling from our agent didn't confirm that interest, eh?)

The closing date isn't unexpected, either, assuming the bank does approve the sale. Why? It's August 19th now, and the bank will want to complete the sale before the end of the quarter to get it off their books (carrying defaulted or endangered loans hurts the bank's quarterly reports, to make a long story short). Assuming it takes the bank another week to churn through the approval process, that would put closing right at the end of the quarter. And it works well for us, assuming the sale is approved soon, as it could mean we don't even have to extend our apartment lease at all (yay!) and might only have another month and change there.

Unfortunately, due to other offers having been made on the home, we had to include an escalation clause in our offer (a bidding war in a "buyer's market"--go figure, huh?), and the listing agent said he thought the bank was going to accept exactly the top figure of our escalation clause. Again, not really a surprise; I'm just hoping the bank doesn't say, "Well, they were willing to offer $10k more in escalation over their offered price; maybe they'll be willing to go a bit higher still?" and counter us, because we don't have time to get involved in extensive negotiations with them at this point--particularly if it meant going into the next quarter, as the bank might then take their time well into late November or early December waffling and waiting for more offers.

Our agent has suggested we go ahead with a home inspection even without the bank's ratification of the contract--a slight risk, as we could be out the $400 or so is the bank declines the sale. I agree with him, though; we had to remove the inspection contingency from our offer previously because banks tend not to allow them (after all, the bank is already losing money on the sale; they don't want to spend more money fixing problems found in an inspection). So if there are any problems to be found, now is the time to do so, before the bank agrees to the sale. (Technically, any bad problems would cause our loan to be declined by the FHA underwriters, so we'd be "safe" even without the contingency provisions, but we'd have to go through the whole loan process to get there first.)

Looks like things could be looking up for us, and that Didi and Chance may finally get a Chateau Papillon! I'll be cautiously optimistic for now...

Waiting Out a Short Sale (Or, Why Real Estate Sucks, Part 3)

Previously, I blogged about our initial frustrations buying a home, which largely were due to the delays brought on by my townhome's buyer (who missed his contracted closing date by nearly two months). The good news is that my wife and I found another home to buy, one we actually liked better than the ones we'd missed out on due to my negligent buyer. The bad news is that the home is offered as a short sale.

A lot of people got into the real estate market during the bubble years. Lenders began issuing mortgages with 100% financing and no PMI (private mortgage insurance--the buyer pays to insure the bank, not the buyer, against a loss on the loan), coupled with low teaser-rates on adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs). Many banks apparently felt unconcerned with the risks this raised; in part, they planned to (and usually did) sell the mortgages quickly, leaving themselves untouched should the buyer default and go into foreclosure. And, with skyrocketing home values, what problem for the bank would a foreclosure be, anyway? They could take the home and sell it at a profit that satisfied the mortgage balance... until, that is, the mortgage bubble burst.

Even worse, many banks allowed loans on a "stated income and assets" basis, meaning buyers didn't even have to prove their income levels. Appraisers were fudging property values, too. And because many of these loans were to people with either poor credit or were otherwise considered risky, the banks had to charge higher interest to be able to sell the loans to investors (because investors rightfully want a higher return, reflected by the higher interest rate, to account for the added risk). A general economic slowdown combined with resetting ARMs going to higher rates--often over 10%!--meant a good many people suddenly found themselves unable to pay their mortgages, and the real estate slowdown meant their homes were losing value, making them very difficult to sell since many people now owed more than the homes were worth. Finally, some banks came up with a totally dreadful idea: allowing borrowers to pay less than the interest accrued each month, backloading the difference onto the back of the loan (meaning the balance owed actually grew over time!)

Banks can foreclose on defaulting buyers and in millions of cases have; however, foreclosures can be costly and time-consuming for the bank (depending on the state), and the loss of market value virtually guarantees banks will not be able to sell homes they now find themselves owning at anywhere near the amount they (or the bank they bought the loan from) originally loaned the former owners. Banks don't like being homeowners; most have to keep up to several times the home's value on-hand as reserves while they try to sell the home, in addition to spending money on property taxes, maintenance, and so forth--and that's money the banks could be lending out and using to generate revenue.

This is where the short sale comes in. In a short sale, the bank chooses to allow the owners to sell the home for less than what is owed on it, usually dismissing the remaining balance owed as a loss. By doing so, the bank avoids the time and expense of a foreclosure and avoids keeping on-hand potentially millions of dollars per property while they try to sell the home they now own (many of which are damaged by disgruntled owners or by apathy toward maintenance by the stingy banks now owning the property). They still take a loss, but--and this is key--often nowhere near the magnitude of loss they'd eat in foreclosure and subsequent sale of the home.

The chief problem is that the people handling short sale approvals for banks--the loss mitigation departments, their asset managers, and ultimately the portfolio managers overseeing large packages of multiple mortgage-backed securities--are absolutely swamped by the real estate crisis. Some loss mitigation reps get literally thousands of faxes a day.

With all that lengthy preamble out of the way, let me get back to the specific situation my wife and I found ourselves in after the purchase of a new home fell through. We compiled a list of around a dozen properties for our agent to take us to see, and one really caught our eye: a great location (on a cul-de-sac near a county park, not too far from my office), in good shape (several places we viewed needed a ton of work--some to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars!), and within our price range. The downside: it was a short sale, and the listing agent seemed difficult to work with right off the bat.

Beth and I did a lot of research on recently-sold and still-on-the-market comparables in the neighborhood and put together a spreadsheet of comps, finding the property value to be right in-line with the asking price (but around $100k less than the mortgage by county property records). Plus, several of the comparable homes which had been foreclosed upon languished on the market, enduring several price cuts without selling. We put together a good offer and sent it to the listing agent.

Making an already-long story short (the particulars of which I may blog about sometime), Beth and I have had our offer for a short sale purchase in front of the bank for approximately a month now and have not yet gotten word on any approval or counter from the bank. Unfortunately, that's par for the course these days; some of the larger banks and loan servicing companies are taking over a month and a half just to get to a given short sale package, with some taking up to four months to approve or reject a short sale!

That leaves us moving to an apartment given our home lease is up later this week, as apartments seemed the only option for a short-term, renewable lease while we wait (hopefully not for long) to hear back from the bank about our short sale purchase offer. As we're offering above the current market value and within 90% of the tax-assessed value, we think our offer is good enough to win approval, but the wait is killing us, no matter how many "just be patients" we get from the listing agent. If the house weren't perfect for our needs, we'd have moved on and bought another place (likely a foreclosed property, which usually takes only a week or two on which to gain bank approval) already--but this place is worth waiting for, assuming we actually are able to get it.

And assuming mortgage rates don't go up to the point we get priced out of the market--a distinct risk these days with the Fed worrying about inflation and banks tightening lending rules and raising rates left and right to discourage what had once been bread-and-butter purchases.

Well, wish us luck. I'll post more on our home buying (mis)adventure as developments warrant.