Screwed by hard money lender

[Account Closed]

I came to BP to find a lender for a BRRRR deal because I thought I could trust this forum, and that's where I found I found HouseMax Funding. I went through the background check and my credentials passed and I was good to go with the loan as long as the appraisal numbers came in where we needed them. Well they did so I thought we were good to go. Now we are supposed to close tomorrow and apparently the capital partners are backing out because

1. I don’t have enough rehabs under my belt (they’ve known the whole time that I’ve only done two) 

2. The comps are too far away (that’s because there is nothing like this property around the area, not necessarily a bad thing). 

3. They don’t like that the seller paid $175K for the house a few months back and I’m paying $345k for it now.   the seller had to pay liens and did some repairs so he has about $283k in the property. The lender has all that proof but apparently it’s still an issue.   

And the seller refuses to give me an extension after tomorrow (They've already given me two extensions because it took so long to find an appraiser). So I'm about to lose $8k in earnest money and fees because of this. I had to make the EMD non refundable to convince the seller to do the deal in the first place. As far as I can tell, nothing in our contract protects me from the lender backing out last minute.

....And we were supposed to close TOMORROW!!!

 I’m devastated, but not defeated. I’ve learned just because a lender is on the bigger pockets forum it does not promise that they are trustworthy. 

Is this normal? How do I know this won’t happen again? 

If you have any advice or want to just cheer me up, please leave me a comment. Thank you!