appraisal questions

[alicia622]

We just got the results of our appraisal and it was not good. The value is about 20K less than it was 3.5 years ago- before we replaced the back deck, added a side porch, replaced the windows, replaced the roof, the bath/shower, the driveway and some other little things. Now, I know these repairs do not add value to the home as they are primarily maintaining the property- but I do think they upped the quality of the home from fair to good.

So, I am aware that the appraisal in 06 may have been inflated due to the housing/mortgage situation however- 2 of the 3 properties we were compared to are located in less desirable neighborhoods. One of the properties has a back yard butting up to the highway- very close to a major exit. I find it hard to believe that is a good comp due to the location and there is no mention of any sort of adjustment for location. This is the house that really pulled our appraisal down. Another property is located on a street with many apartments and businesses- and you can see the casino and main street from the property. It's also in a historically undesirable part of town.

The bank told me I can find other properties to suggest the appraiser use to compare our house to. Would you do this? I am planning on it but am having difficulty finding sites that can give me recent housing sales. I found one good one- city-data.com but it isn't giving me all the properties I am looking for. Do you know of any other sites to help me?

Thanks for reading and any input you can provide

[cristeen]

I would absolutely ask for different comps. But the fact is that it may be very difficult to find if there haven't been a lot of sales recently (foreclosures/short sales can actually be even worse for you). I don't know what state you're in, but here you would call up a title company's customer service desk and ask them to pull comps for you.

[alicia622]

Thanks Cristeen- I will call around next week. I am glad I'm not being unreasonable

[Denvergirlie]

you can look at zillow, it will have houses that just sold in there listings.

[2cutiekitties]

Originally Posted by alicia622

The bank told me I can find other properties to suggest the appraiser use to compare our house to. Would you do this? I am planning on it but am having difficulty finding sites that can give me recent housing sales. I found one good one- city-data.com but it isn't giving me all the properties I am looking for. Do you know of any other sites to help me?

I love city data. The forums there are the bomb!!

I am totally frustrated that you have to do anything. You paid for an appraisal, they should do it right. It is so annoying that they just drive past your house anyway and it sounds like they didnt even do that for your house? Maybe I dont know how appraisals work? They just drove down our street for our refinancing appraisal.

Have you tried Trulia or movoto? They might have something.

[alicia622]

thanks- zillow has nothing in my whole city!!! Trulia seems to want me to pay for the listings- I'll have to check out movoto.

The appraiser did come to our house but I am really questioning how he came up with the choices he did

[sunnysandiegan]

We had an appraisal this past Monday. We were actually on vacation and my dad let the appraiser in and spoke with him. The guy apparently did a lot of measuring and asked a lot of questions about our cork flooring. Thank goodness my dad helped us install it and pointed out other upgrades we have done. We haven't heard anything from the appraiser or our loan officer this week at all, but didn't expect to either. For our re-fi, we just need to establish the value for the loan-to-value ratio in order to qualify for the lower APR. Our lender gives preferential treatment based on a few factors and that is one of them. Since we purchased before the bubble, this should be easy for us. If you purchased in 2006, you will have a different situation entirely.

I check Coldwell Banker's website for recently sold properties in our area a few times a year. It is free. (Technically, they offer 3 options. Two are free and easy. One isn't. I check both of the free options and ignore the "personal contact" option.) They happen to be the most prolific in our community. When you drive around, which real estate company has the most signs out? That is the company I would call and ask questions and check their website to see if they offer recent sales prices or estimated home values (at no cost).

[Cheshire]

Call a real estate agent and ask them for their help. Most would do it for free. They have access to the exact database the appraiser probably used and can tell you if he pulled the best comps he could find or if there are better ones out there.

Good luck!

[Defenestrator]

My city has property tax data online. You give an address -- you can give a whole street -- and then you can see who owns each house, what its SEV is, and when it last changed hands and for how much. I would recommend picking a relatively nice couple of streets in your area and then looking at the tax data. My website even has pictures of the houses taken by the city assessors, though they are often quite out of date.

[mattemma04]

I second looking up the property tax page for homes that recently sold.I had a realtor say my house might sell for 89k if we were lucky.Many houses are listed at 80k to 120k. The realtor showed me homes for sale,and a few that recently sold to justify the number for my home.

I recently looked up a for sale by owner home that had sold over the summer.I remember laughing *good luck* when I saw their flier listing the sale price at 122k. They sold for 123k. That high home sale does not show up on zillow or with the realtors. My home is compared to forclosures and short sales.We refuse to sell at a loss. Realtors here list low and drop prices.Seems like they just want to do a quick turn over and move on to the next home.

We also bought in the housing boom time and have seen prices drop.If you think your home is worth more list it at more.A buyer will see the worth in the home and its location......and will pay more for that.

[Caneel]

I was an appraiser for a number of years. While I did primarily commercial properties, I did get called into do speciality residential stuff for workouts, bankrupcies, estates, divorces, eminent domain and such.

A few thoughts -

Your first appraisal might have been garbage. It happens a lot, especially during the boom times. I saw a period of this in the 90s where banks and appraisers were just pushing stuff through to make loans. Many, many times I would get called in when the next appraisal (for refinancing, selling, workout) came in considerably lower than the one just a few years prior.

No mention about an adjustment for an inferior locations? I would definately question this.

I find it interesting that the bank is telling you that you need to find sales. The bank should be working for you and questioning the appraiser and making the appraiser defend his report. Not the other way around. Maybe it is time to look for another bank.

[alicia622]

So I spoke to the appraiser today. He said that there was no need to make an adjustment for location. I still disagree, but he's not changing anything. I told him I had found a few other properties to consider and he will look at them. He did says, "it's not that I made a mistake but there may be better properties to consider." We shall see what comes of this although I'm pretty sure he will still with the same value he gave ours and we are going to need to come up with another plan. PITA!!!!

[sunnysandiegan]

We got our appraisal value today and it was a bit higher than what I had estimated based on Coldwell Banker's website. Everything is fine for us, but I asked the loan officer hypothetically what would happen if I disagreed with it. She told me it would delay our re-fi, which could affect our terms, and that I'd have to speak directly with the appraiser to "appeal" his decision.

I read through the entire 20-page document (appraisal) and our appraiser seems to have done a decent job. He did his homework through the tax records before ever coming out to the property. He did adjust for location on one comparable property up (their busy street location added $7K to their sales price for comparison purposes) and a different one down (their canyon views dropped their sales price by $10K for comparison purposes). We have a "garden view", which he considers "average" and all comps were adjusted to our "average." He also adjusted for upgrades (1 up; 1 down). He used the MLS listing notes to adjust for those. All adjustments were made from the sales price from tax records (individually) and then he averaged the 5 comps to arrive at his appraised value of our home. (Low average due to general market conditions.)

My emotional reaction to our upgrades was, "Wow! Did he notice this or that? [etc]" He assessed our upgrades as "average" and only noted the upgraded flooring and one slider. We've made a lot more upgrades than that! However, we don't need a higher appraisal to qualify for the re-fi at the lowest rate offered, so it really doesn't matter.

Included in our appraisal were several paragraphs regarding short sales and reo properties and other such real estate activities in our area. He also noted the general market conditions. The wording suggested he averaged downward due to these. The properties he used had sale dates from 2009, also, which are lower than prices right now in our area. Interesting, but not crucial for our appraisal.

Have you checked real estate sites for a reasonable value for your home outside this appraiser? Have you checked tax records for real sales prices? The first prepared us for an accurate assessment. The second seems to be exactly how our appraiser got his info. I don't know how he decided the street view was worth $7K one way and the canyon view was worth $10K the other way and ours was set at $0, aside from the mechanics of how appraisals work (comparing everything to appraised property).

Best wishes!