Things are seeming a little better today if only because I finally spoke to my real estate broker and my attorney and they both think that the appraiser is a crackpot. It doesn't promise us anything, but I have some hope. Also, I spoke to the sellers realtor today and she tells me that the tax assessment on the house is just a few thousand below our agreed price. I have a new appraisal scheduled for Monday which is a miracle that my realtor concocted as there is a real backlog with folks refinancing all over the place. It does seem that even if everything goes perfectly from now on, we still won't be able to close on the thirteenth like we had planned. Hopefully we'll only be delayed a week. December 1st I am supposed to have a tennant move in (a friend of mine) and my step-mom is coming to visit.

This is largely my mortgage broker's fault. She waited much too long to schedule the appraisal and the guy she called isn't from this area. My attorney (who I absolutely love) has been leery of her from the start. He would tell me to call her and see how things were going and when I would, she would just say that everything was fine and going according to schedule. I don't know what kind of schedule she had in mind - a late one I guess.

The mystery piece of information here is that it is a two family house that is not currently being used as a two family house and isn't really being marketed as a two family house. But the zoning is two family. And the only houses that the appraiser found in the immediate area that were two family were cheap. It doesn't matter what kind of condition they were in or the square footage or if they had lime green asbestos shingles. He told me he can only use as comprables these other two family houses. Plus, he was going to take off money from the appraisal because of the condition of the roof, exterior paint, and a lot of other less significant things.

Enough of that, here's a cool thing: Steve is going to to Boston on Monday to audition to be a Blue Man.