August 18, 2006--Appraisal woes again

We got the appraisal back on the house we were trying to buy yesterday. It appraised for $53,000 contingent on $25,000 worth of repair. What on earth were they thinking??? They couldn't just give us an actual "this is what the house is worth" price. It appraised in fair--poor condition. The bank won't give us a residential loan on it in that condition. The house is sold "as is". They aren't going to do the repairs needed so we could get a loan. The only way we could get that house is to have the cash for it. The loan officer said that she's going to see if maybe we could qualify for a commercial loan and then tranfer it to a residential loan after we fix it up. My mom said they usually want 25% down on commercial loans, which would not leave us enough money to do the repairs needed. I'm wondering if they would take the difference between the appraised value and the repairs needed--$28,000. But we still can't get a loan, because of the condition of the house. It's so frustrating because the house really doesn't need that much work. We could do the work ourselves for about $8,000. They want it repainted, the carpet replaced, soffit repaired, the exterior painted, the drywall patched, one of the baseboard heaters replaced, trim put on the doors, closet doors installed, the sink cabinet in the main bathroom replaced, the shower and toilet replaced in the master bath, and the kitchen cabinets replaced before they would lend money on it. It's crazy. They had told us before that as long as the electicity was up to their standard and there were no leaks in the roof and it was livable, they could lend money. Now they are saying they can't. We're going to write my great-grandpa and see if he would lend us the money. It doesn't hurt to ask. We would pay him back--we are very good about that.