Question on appraisal

apeydee416 · ‎02-28-2015

I know that you aren't approved for a loan until the UW gives the clear to close, but here is my scenario..

Put a contract on a house to be built and was given the time it takes to build the house to get our credit up to qualify. Recently, we hit their minimums on credit score so we moved forward with the application. I got an update yesterday that we will be headed into underwriting shortly, right after all the verifications and the appraisal comes back. Since an appraisal is an expense (mine), they wouldn't order that unless they felt confident the loan would clear underwriting right? It just seems silly to pay for an appraisal when an underwriter hasn't even looked at my file. I'm working with a broker and they wouldn't send a bad file to their banks would they? I'm very confused here.

ezdriver · ‎02-28-2015

@apeydee416 wrote:
I know that you aren't approved for a loan until the UW gives the clear to close, but here is my scenario..

Put a contract on a house to be built and was given the time it takes to build the house to get our credit up to qualify. Recently, we hit their minimums on credit score so we moved forward with the application. I got an update yesterday that we will be headed into underwriting shortly, right after all the verifications and the appraisal comes back. Since an appraisal is an expense (mine), they wouldn't order that unless they felt confident the loan would clear underwriting right? It just seems silly to pay for an appraisal when an underwriter hasn't even looked at my file. I'm working with a broker and they wouldn't send a bad file to their banks would they? I'm very confused here.

Because you are buying new construction, the appraisal won't be done until the house is almost done. It could be five months from signing the purchase agreement to the house being ready for an appraisal to be done. Your mortgage loan would have been underwritten and approved long before the appraisal is done. The approval would still have the appraisal, certificate of occupancy, homeowners insurance, title insure etc. as contingencies.

Makes sense?

apeydee416 · ‎03-02-2015

The house will be ready in three weeks, so it can have an appraisal done. However, my file has NOT been underwritten and that is where my confusion is coming in.

frugalQ · ‎03-02-2015

We went under contract on our new build in September 2014, our LO did not order the appraisal until we got the conditional approval from the underwriter and confirmed that all conditions could be met.

That was 5 weeks before closing. We close in 3 weeks

apeydee416 · ‎03-02-2015

That's why I am so confused, because we havent even been to underwriting.

Peter1142 · ‎03-02-2015

Tell your LO you don't want to order an appraisal until you have conditional approval from underwriting.

apeydee416 · ‎03-02-2015

I am pretty sure its already been ordered because last week on Friday I asked him for an update and he said:

"this is the hard part of the process while we wait for all verifications and the appraisal to come in. your file is in the line for processing and will be reviewed and readied for underwriting shortly, my processor will come back with any questions she may have."

Anonymous · ‎03-02-2015

Our appraisal was ordered as soon as we agreed with the seller on terms of what we wanted fixed post-inspection, before we went to UW.

apeydee416 · ‎03-02-2015

I just don't see why an appraisal would be ordered if an underwriter hadnt reviewed the file to see if it was atleast doable, yanno?

frugalQ · ‎03-02-2015

I agree with you. I was happy that my LO held off on our appraisal. She was confident in our file, but she first wanted some official assurance that we would be approved. She didn't want us to waste our $350.