The Last Great Housing Snag (I HOPE)

Well, I knew it couldn't end so easily. I knew there would have to be one final, ugly snag since the VA was involved in this. The final step in our loan process was having a VA certified "expert" (and considering the person we dealt with, I use that term very loosely) appraise the home. With a VA loan, you can ONLY borrow what the house is worth, period, and the house is worth whatever they say it is. That's pretty well true with any house, it's only worth what you can sell it for, but the VA is a whole other beast. They notoriously lowball everything compared with local agents who know the area better. They did it last time we bought a property, and this time they came up with a figure all of $300 short of the actual sale price. Since we can only borrow the value of the house, that meant either we dropped the sale, renegotiated with the sellers or coughed up the $300 ourselves. Now $300 isn't a horrible amount of money, but come on....$300? That's just nitpicking. We looked through the paperwork and there were several things she didn't even take into consideration, namely that there's a refrigerator and a three car parking pad in front of the house. Surely those things merit the other $300 so everyone's happy. DH called her today. Ha. What a total witch, and that's ironic considering her report ended with "and if you have any problems or questions at all, please feel free to contact me!" The woman was like talking with a brick wall and was extremely rude. It was obvious there was no working this out on her end. We could fight it, but after some of the stories she told us about other cases she's currently trying to fight, it isn't worth it for a measley $300 and probably the six months it would take to be rejected.
On to plan B, which our realtor suggested, which was ask for a price reduction from the sellers. We were hesitant since they had already dropped the price by nearly $20,000 a month ago and I can't blame them for not wanting to do it. I sure wouldn't and so we figured we'd just put off building the fence for our dog for a few months and just pay the $300. We were shocked when our realtor called tonight to say the seller's realtor had offered to split the $300 from his commission and hers, which means we get to keep our cash. I'm so relieved and I told her we would only let her do that if we can invite her over for a few steak dinners down the road as repayment. She laughed but agreed. I do have to say she's the best real estate agent we've ever dealt with and she has gone to bat for us multiple times the last six months. She's a great advisor in the whole real estate arena. We moved our closing up to Friday so that we can build the fence this weekend and hopefully the weather will cooperate. Soon we will be homeowners again and all the headaches that brings with it.