There’s something extra powerful about doing a lot of real estate transactions at the same time.  I think you learn a lot more because you’re in the thick of it and you basically have to dedicate your life to it for those several weeks.  You can also compare and contrast how the different transactions are going, and ask questions to one that was learned from another, and then when you get your answer, you can go back to the other with more questions, etc.

I got pretty involved in preconstruction over the last year and had 6 homes built.  Most of them had great builder incentives if you used the builder’s lender, so I’ve been able to/had to work with several different lenders in addition to 3 different mortgage brokers that I tried out on my own.  It’s been great learning tidbits from each one.  It’s also been very interesting to see the diversity in the loan officers’ perspectives, expertise, advice, and style.  For each of these homes, we closed on the original loan then re-financed it soon after - so 12 transactions, most with a 1st and a 2nd mortgage, in addition to re-fi’ing our primary residence twice.  Wow!  No wonder my fax machine has been overheating.  With all of the activity winding up, I’m looking forward to a reprieve and then buying more multi family again.  The homes are rented and on autopilot now.

One thing came up yesterday that just made me scratch my head.  I mentioned a few days ago about all the nickel and dime fees that were on my HUD-1.  We managed to get several of them removed, notably the “appraisal review fee.”  Turns out the lender wants you to pay for them to review the appraisal that you just paid a licensed professional to produce.  I thought that’s what licensing and regulatory agencies were for - lenders can be assured that the appraisal is legit because a licensed appraiser did it.  If I wanted to pay the lender $274 to confirm the accuracy of it I would have had my neighbor write up his opinion of the value of my house and would’ve turned that in for review.

The interesting twist that happened yesterday was on a different re-fi I’m doing.  The first re-fi from last week had the appraisal review fee, we asked to have it removed, and the lender agreed and it was taken off.  We got another HUD-1 for a different re-fi yesterday to review prior to closing, and there was an appraisal review fee on this one too.  So we again asked to have it removed.  The fee was $274.  This time the lender said no.  Reason being that this time taking the fee off would mean decreasing our loan amount by $274, which would mean re-drawing the loan docs.  And they would charge us $250 to re-draw loan docs so they’d rather not do it at all.  Excuse me?  You’re going to charge me $250 to deduct $274?  If you have to re-draw docs to get rid of the fee, then re-draw docs.  I don’t care what you have to do to make it happen.  Your internal processes are your issue.  I need my loan amount to be $274 less than it was before, with no additional $250 added back in to cover “the process.”  Didn’t work.  They emphatically said no.

Let me digress for a second and liken this to a similar situation that happened a couple months ago.  This could be why I’m hyper-sensitive about it and out of patience with this right now.  A couple months ago I went to get my hair highlighted.  This place is not cheap but I always feel like a queen while I’m there and it turns out great.  I told my stylist that I wanted it chunky.  You girls know what I mean.  You also know that you don’t get to see how it turns out until the color is all washed out and your hair is dry and styled the way you normally do it.  On my way out of the salon, my stylist says the obligatory “if you have any problems with it, just give us a call and come back in.”  When I got home I was just so disappointed, it was not chunky, and considering it cost $250 I thought I would exercise my option to go back and have it corrected.  So I went back the next day and she put the chunks in.  I stopped at the counter on the way out and the cashier looks up my name and informs me that my color correction was indeed complementary.  Of course it was.  “But,” she says, “the shampoo and blow dry will be $40.”  What?  It is literally impossible to put highlights in and not shampoo it out.  You have to otherwise the chemicals stay on too long and your hair would be fried.  And you must blow dry it to see the resulting color - to confirm if this time the chunks were there.  You cannot do half of this process.

So this idea of charging me $250 to remove what I think is a bogus fee to begin with is a repeat performance of charging me $40 more, on top of the original $250, to do highlights.  Not to mention the time it takes to go back in a second time for the correction.

But to bring this all back around, I have to give you the punch line.  I found out that the lender who agreed to remove the appraisal review fee on re-fi #1 was indeed the exact same lender who refused to remove it on re-fi #2! 

I’m using two different mortgage brokers on each one, could that be it?  They are likely speaking with two different lender representatives on the other end when they are both asking for the fee to be removed, could that be it?  Presumably the lender reps are both looking at the same script on their computer screen that’s coming from the same software program.  Could they be clicking through the screens differently, yielding different answers?  Or is is really a judgment call and one is just being nicer?  I have no idea.  This one will remain unsolved as I’m out of energy for it.

I did go ahead though and calculate what I’m actually paying for that appraisal review, now that it’s been added into my loan and amortized.  If I’ve done my math right, if I really were to hold this home for 30 years, I will have paid $724 for someone to review my appraisal.