You have to decide if you want to accept their terms or not.In my town, a HELOC is usually based on an appraisal that is done by a 3rd party, not a county assessor.  

Why is accepted the keys and the deposit a bad approach?

What are your guidelines when to accept and when not?

Looks like without documentation you don't have to just accept what she says.  

I have not accepted any payments though here yet though.

That’s my goal as well, and I got the biggest possible place I could with the fha, and was shocked my bid got accepted.

So we waited 3 days over a weekend to talk to the loan officer to make sure that what I wanted to do(put 1% down for earnest money and roll the closing fees into the loan) was possible however, when the loan officer finally said it was alright, we tried to put in the offer and found out the seller had accepted another offer that day.Am I just trying to do things with a VA loan that aren't possible?

Getting back to the story, I reached out to the agent right away for the financials and as soon as they were sent over, I ran a quick analysis and sent over my first offer and what do you know, it was accepted!

My offer got accepted on a 2 family home this past Sunday.

In the HUD LBP addendum, there's an inspection contingency that reads:The Purchaser has a contingency period that expires fifteen (15) calendar days from the date the contract is accepted by HUD to conduct at the Purchaser's expense, an independent lead-based paint inspection visual assessment for deteriorated paint or risk assessment.