3031 N. Lamer and what I learned

3031 N. Lamer, Burbank has finally closed, a little over a week late. That may not sound so bad, but on the 6th I was told that it wouldn't be closing at all because of loan problems.  I really learned a lot with this one (lots of which I can't put into print here).  First, I learned that no matter how much everybody tells me that they love midcentury moderns, location is still more important.  And Burbank seems to be perceived as just...not cool enough...to move to.  I hired a publicist and even with that, couldn't get much press or really even that many showings (thanks for nothing, Curbed L.A.).

I knew this already, but appraisals are still a big issue in our current lending environment.  This home sold over the appraised price.  It went into escrow at $829k, appraised at $805k, but the buyer and seller came to an agreement and settled at $824k.  Even though the buyer was putting a lot down, the loan had to go back through "appraisal review" at the lender's -- twice, apparently.

The third thing I learned was that lenders in Texas have a hard time funding loans in California, no matter how many branches they have here.  This makes sense as the financial industry laws are different state by state.  I won't go into the gory details because I'm not even sure about how many levels of screw-up there were with the lender, but we did get help from the lender's branch manager and regional vp.  From here on, I will only recommend local lenders (see my Local Partners page on my website for four lenders that I do recommend).

Fourth, and I pretty much knew this too: some people need to get off drugs.  And others need to take more.  (I'll let you guess what category I'm in ;).)

Now for a shout-out to Lisa Gaynor and her staff at West Coast Escrow.  Lisa and her team kept their cool although it took them about six times the normal amount of work to get this closed and Lisa must have dealt with over 30 people.  That's about 25 more people than an escrow officer normally has to deal with.

So, does anybody else have to sell an architecturally significant home in an area where nobody cares about such things?  If so, I'm your Realtor!