Getting closer to closing

My realtor called last Friday and said the bank approved our sale (price)!

So an appraiser is coming over on Monday 4/21 to do a full appraisal - about an hour's worth.

Not sure why that is needed if the bank has approved the sale (price). I emailed my realtor and asked him to explain why that is needed even though the bank has agreed to the short sale (price).

The brother and sister of the buyer and the sister's husband (brother-in-law) came over a week and a half ago to take pictures of the house inside and out. They were very nice. But it was kind of awkward when the B-I-L asked me what happened, why we had to sell, meaning why would a person like me who works for a Fortune 500 company end up upside down in his mortgage. I just said we had some financial trouble and left it at that.

We still dont have a rental lease agreement. I thought they were bringing over the agreement for us to sign but they said that the brother (future owner) was very laid back and that we could just get a generic lease agreement off the net. They agreed to lower the rental payment if we would take care of the yard work (mowing, edging, trimming, etc) and the pool maintenance. I checked the rental comps in our area and for the square footage I think that we're getting a good deal.

I also looked at house prices around here again. I saw a nice house - plus pool and spa and about 2650 sq.ft. - recently listed for $113 per square foot. We sold our house (pool and spa also) for about $140 per square foot (3224 sq.ft.) two months ago - at least we agreed on the sale price two months ago. So that shows me that house prices in our area are still dropping. In fact, there were three other houses for sale in our neghborhood - all less than 6 houses down from ours - that have recently been: auctioned, rented and the last one still up for sale. The auction included many many houses from this area and the auction was last Monday night - it was advertised in the local newspapers. I wonder if anyone bid on the house up for auction that was 3 doors down from us. Guess we'll find out later.

It's funny about the other house still up for sale: a neighbor who lives 2 doors down from that vacant house recently ran a garden hose across two driveways so that they could water the now dried out brown lawn of the vacant for sale house.

And, if you drive down our street about 20+ houses away the street curves and there are two houses with dried out brown lawns and lockboxes on the front doors - both vacant, one for at least three months, the other more recently about 2-3 weeks ago.

I heard on a CNN news program that if you're going to buy a foreclosed house on a street that has more than one foreclosed house then you should buy the last remaining foreclosed house on the block. That way your house will be the last lowest comp price on the block. As each foreclosed house sells it drives down the price of the next foreclosed house to sell on the same block until the very last one remains and would be the bottom for the neighborhood. Of course, you would just have to hope that no more foreclosures pop up after that.