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So, banks have fees.
The fees associated with a home loan are: 1) appraisal 2) title search 3) flood certification ad 4) recording costs with the county.
I work for a small bank. We don't have any of these services internal. We pay for them. We don't have the clout to get massive deals. We are careful. We don't skip title searches. So, to do a home loan, we incur costs. And those costs are passed through to the customer exactly as they are charged to us.
The big driver of how much the total fees are is the appraisal. But even with NO appraisal, there is always a minimum $150 for the title search, recording costs and flood certification.
SC is mad from the start because he just refinanced his 1st mortgage (with someone else) and we do not accept outside appraisals. I take his case up to management, and get approval for an exception to do an AVM instead of an appraisal. An AVM is basically a computer valuation. It's more detailed (but not much) than looking up the value of your house online. As one might expect, we can only use an AVM when we have a decent amount of wiggle room in the valuation, because we don't consider them highly accurate. In SCs case, I get approval to use the AVM despite it giving me a value that puts him right at 100% of the loan-to-value of his house.
An AVM only costs $30. So total fees $180. Great, right?
Of course not. SC rants and raves at me about these fees for a good 20-30 minutes.
I make some alternate financing suggestions and offer to cancel the application.
Amazingly enough, the SC decides to proceed, despite the outrageous closing cost of $180.
I get the title search and flood certification done. I gather his paperwork. Since I didn't have to do an appraisal, I have everything ready to close in a bit less than a week.
I call to set up a closing appointment.
At which point SC rants and raves at me for another 20-30 minutes about us killing him with fees.
He cancels the application.
Now that does mean the bank is out the fees (except for the recording costs, since that hasn't been completed yet) as we don't charge the fees unless you get the loan. But you know what?
Not concerned about losing you.
The fees associated with a home loan are: 1) appraisal 2) title search 3) flood certification ad 4) recording costs with the county.
I work for a small bank. We don't have any of these services internal. We pay for them. We don't have the clout to get massive deals. We are careful. We don't skip title searches. So, to do a home loan, we incur costs. And those costs are passed through to the customer exactly as they are charged to us.
The big driver of how much the total fees are is the appraisal. But even with NO appraisal, there is always a minimum $150 for the title search, recording costs and flood certification.
SC is mad from the start because he just refinanced his 1st mortgage (with someone else) and we do not accept outside appraisals. I take his case up to management, and get approval for an exception to do an AVM instead of an appraisal. An AVM is basically a computer valuation. It's more detailed (but not much) than looking up the value of your house online. As one might expect, we can only use an AVM when we have a decent amount of wiggle room in the valuation, because we don't consider them highly accurate. In SCs case, I get approval to use the AVM despite it giving me a value that puts him right at 100% of the loan-to-value of his house.
An AVM only costs $30. So total fees $180. Great, right?
Of course not. SC rants and raves at me about these fees for a good 20-30 minutes.
I make some alternate financing suggestions and offer to cancel the application.
Amazingly enough, the SC decides to proceed, despite the outrageous closing cost of $180.
I get the title search and flood certification done. I gather his paperwork. Since I didn't have to do an appraisal, I have everything ready to close in a bit less than a week.
I call to set up a closing appointment.
At which point SC rants and raves at me for another 20-30 minutes about us killing him with fees.
He cancels the application.
Now that does mean the bank is out the fees (except for the recording costs, since that hasn't been completed yet) as we don't charge the fees unless you get the loan. But you know what?
Not concerned about losing you.
I would have 
OTOH, foreclosure (and in his case it sounds more like when? than if
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