Multi-Family appraisal falling short

[Dante Ritchey]

Hello everyone,

My brother and I are in the middle of our first house hack in Massachusetts. We have the house under contract and everything has gone through except now we are stuck at the appraisal. It is a deeded two family house that was turned back into a single family and needs roughly 15-20k out into it to bring it back to a multi family. We knew this and offered accordingly although now the appraisal has come in and at our agreed upon price we are 40,000 above the single family appraisal price. The appraisal came in above our offer contingent on it being converted back to a two family before closing. As we understand our only options now are to either fork over the additional 40,000 keeping it as a single family in the eyes of the bank or see if we can come to agreement with the seller to return it to a two family before we close, allowing it to appraise. I figured it was best to post here to see if anyone has any creative ideas that may help us get over this hurdle? 

*we are in the middle of an appraisal dispute right now, although for the area there are not many recent comps in both time and proximity so we are not very confident this will help us but we are trying this currently.*

Sorry for the long winded post but looking forward to hearing from you guys to see any creative ideas you may have.

Thank you in advance for all of your help!