I want to buy a house and need a structual engineer

[Ron]

if they are telling you that you need a 203k loan, i would avoid it. that means that they are expecting you to need somewhere between $5,000-35,000 worth of repair right off the bat.
and i believe you have a deadline to complete these repairs.

not necessarily anymore.
Because of the housing crunch a few thinggs happened.
Literally no one wants to loan above sell price.
By law, loan value is now fixed at sell price for 1 year from date of closing. IOW you can buy a 500,000 home that needs paint and carpet for 225,000 you can not then take out a ahome equity loan for one year because by law the banks have to show that house value as 225,000 and you owed 100% loan to value (or minus whatever % your down payment was)

203k are federal property rehab loans and they are still very active, because of tghe banking restricictions they are very popular right now.