Chase bank can *&ck off (A New Hope)

Remember how much I hated Chase bank last summer? (If not, be sure to link back to the trilogy of pain, starting here.)

A few months ago, Scott decided he was going to try this refinance thing again. Our friends did it, worked with the same lady we did last summer, and theirs went through without a hitch. In fact, their appraisal came back higher than they expected, so they were thrilled.

Scott’s rationale was, “surely things can’t go that wrong for us again.”

Do you remember how my New Year started? Never, ever, ever will I say that again.

We were ready to get the house in better shape than last time. After all, the last guy jumped all over the spots I had spackled and not painted, and docked us $460 worth of value over that. So, I took care of that. We also noted that since the last appraisal, we have added a security system, painted two rooms, and added a ceiling fan in one of those rooms. Scott even called the PVA and got the age of our house fixed as well. We were armed and ready for this appraisal.

I happen to know of two appraisers we don’t want to use – the idiot from last time, and another guy who our friends told us not to use. The latter was the guy they said they were sending. I told the appraisal people no. They asked why. “Ummm, cause I was told he sucks.” (I’m a crappy liar, sue me.) Half an hour later they called with the name and number of someone else.

Scott got it set up, and the guy came out last Wednesday. I asked him how it went – he said the guy was nice, but he didn’t take as many pictures as the other guy, and he wasn’t there all that long.

We took that to be a good sign. If he wasn’t there that long, he couldn’t nit-pick, right?

Optimistic thinking has never been my strong point, I don’t know why I even attempted it there.

As it turns out, this guy was new. So he didn’t know what he was doing.

He said we had a porch and a deck, but didn’t show the deck. He didn’t mention ANY of the amenities we had – like the bay window, tray ceilings, etc. He got bad comps. (He compared our house to a tiny three-bedroom sold recently … umm, no.) He took bad pictures – to the point home office told him he needed new ones (at one point noting the difference in season in multiple pictures – to call him out on pulling pics from the internet rather than taking them himself).

So, are we surprised that Idiot Appraiser #2 came back with an appraisal $1,000 LESS than Idiot Appraiser #1 did last year?

*headdesk*

Why the hell do we even try?