Open Thread

“PCB at Brooklyn Bridge Park :-(”

It’s not Brooklyn Bridge Park – it’s a park in Red Hook. Can’t be all that surprising there, but still sucks.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=avtbxqvzd_EI

!!!!

PCB at Brooklyn Bridge Park 🙁

Question for you home-buyer experts:

Ok, first off, perhaps I shouldn’t be watching HGTV to get knowledge in this arena 🙂 But anyway….

Last night I watched a show called “My First Sale.” Two cousins bought a house to flip (!!! I know…in this market???). Anyhooo, they listed the home for sale after renovation for $462k. They got an offer on the house from a woman for $442k. Her offer states that she’d be putting down $234k, the rest made up in a bank loan. One of the contingencies in the contract (as required by her lender) was that the home must appraise at or above whatever the final agreed upon contract price is. The two cousins balked at such a contingency.

Here’s my question: Isn’t it typical that a bank would want the home to appraise at or above the sale price? What bank is going to give a loan to buy a house at a price that higher than what it’s worth? (excluding of course situations where the renovation costs are rolled into the loan) But, is it possible that the bank shouldn’t care unless the appraisal comes in below the actual loan amount since the potential buyer was making a hefty downpayment (ie if the contract price winds up being the $442k offered the bank shouldn’t care as long as the appraisal comes in for at least the $228k the bank would be loaning the buyer)? (It wasn’t made really clear during the show why the cousins felt that the bank’s contingency was out of line.) Or is it typical, even in this situation, that a bank would make such a demand?

Biff’s junk is obsolete.

Biff, gotcha. Anyone know how to make software?