Three days before closing on our property, the lender decided that they would decline the loan as they noticed in the appraisal (that they had possession of for 5 weeks) that the home has geo-thermal. Our real estate agent and mortgage broker were both surprised by this. Has anyone else had this experience?
6 Comments Already
May 30th, 2010 @6:07 pm
Never seen one as an underwriting exception.
May 30th, 2010 @6:32 pm
Do you mean a geothermal heating system? Probably, some underwriter decided it is unconventional and therefore could be risky. Underwriters do weird things sometimes.
May 30th, 2010 @7:17 pm
no thats a first for me….outrageous…..i would demand to know why from your lender espeically in these times for greater need for energy efficent homes..All I can think of is that they can give problems in houses that mayhave subsidence issues..but Im sure that would have been ruled out even so if anything went wrong insurance wold cover it. Id threaten to go to the media about this one!!
May 30th, 2010 @7:59 pm
I wrote a contract on an underground house a couple of years ago and could not find anyone willing to make a low down payment loan. The mortgage companies kept demanding the appraisal include current sales that were nearby and were also underground. We could not find any. The buyer finally decided that it would be hard to ever resale the home so they backed out.
So if this system is new to your area or if their have not been many sell recently then that could be your problem (especially if you are trying to put a very small amount down).
May 30th, 2010 @8:25 pm
Geothermal heat is common in my area and I have never heard of this. Most lenders will allow exceptions to their rules if something is typical for an area, such as this circumstance.
Try somewhere else.
Odd, I would have thought a geothermal system would be an assett.