low appraisals killing home sales !

All accross our country appraisals are comming in lower than the asking prices of homes. Its effecting everyone and our econmony! We are in the process of purchasing an REO(bank owned) property. The original asking price was 159,900. The bank then dropped the price to 149,900 due to the property being or sale for several months without any buyers. At this price we came in with our bid which was full asking price. We got our home inspection and it came time for the appraisal......when the appraisal came back it was for 141,000. The lender won't loan ONE dime more than what the appraisal price of the home is! We did not have the cash to bridge the gap between asking price and appraisal! At this point our ONLY hope was for the seller(the bank) to come down in price to meet the appraisal or the deal would be killed here! We were very blessed because the bank DID reduce the price to meet the appraisal! HOWEVER, the bank wanted us to come up with an EXTRA 1,500 dollars in closing fees or AGAIN the deal would be killed here. We were very blessed to be able to come up with the extra closing costs! This is happening all across our country. Applicants are wanting to buy homes and that would boost our economy but are unable to due to low appraisals. Not every bank is willing to reduce prices to match appraisals and the deal at that point dies. Something really needs to be done to stop this! People don't usually have the cash to bridge to gap of the appraisals and banks are not wanting to reduce the property down to appraisal price so deals are being killed everywhere with totally qualifyed home buyers! This situation has made it almost impossiable to buy a home now! Hopefully this trend will stop and we will be able to recover. This whole ordeal has been unpleasant to say the least. But I do feel very blessed that we are able to continue our transaction! Many people are not that fortunate! This needs to stop.