Appraisal Problem (sale, refinance, lender)

[LisaSmith]

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[chet everett]

Best advice: STAY AWAY! If I gather your intent, what you are suggesting could get you sued -- you must make no attempt to interfere in that sellers ability to try and get the house sold!

While it sorta sucks that YOUR LENDER (the party that technically needed/wanted the appraisal) could not justify the price you were willing to pay, that is happening more and more. Look on the bright side: the lender has prevented you from being "upside down" -- not fun owing more than the house is worth...

Odds are not good that other lenders will agree with the appraisal they got "from a buddy" and if they do that is THEIR mistake.

Right now there is no way uniform way to track the appraisal that killed your purchase, and any attempt to contact other lenders or potential buyers could you leave you open to lawsuit.

Walk away and be thankful that you are not stuck with a mess...

[chet everett]

There are a multitude of appraisers that made no real attempt to defraud anyone -- the choice of comps is pretty subjective. If the comps chosen by the appraiser that your lender choose are a better match odds are than any other lender would prefer that appraisal in this economy. If the lender is smart they can query MLS and determine that your offer was rejected for lack of funding. The best you can do is hope no one else gets taken advantage of.

[Anthera]

Any appraiser that "lowballs" a property is probably trying to be as honest as possible. If they are constantly killing deals, the banks may stop using their services. I doubt that there was any malice intended on the appraiser's part.

It is an inact science, I have often giggled at the comps used when we have refinanced. Especially when they claim that the comp properties are "superior" or "inferior" to our house. Since they were never in those houses, its just a shell game.

I am sorry that your deal was killed

[chet everett]

Originally Posted by Anthera

Any appraiser that "lowballs" a property is probably trying to be as honest as possible. If they are constantly killing deals, the banks may stop using their services. I doubt that there was any malice intended on the appraiser's part.

It is an inact science, I have often giggled at the comps used when we have refinanced. Especially when they claim that the comp properties are "superior" or "inferior" to our house. Since they were never in those houses, its just a shell game.

I am sorry that your deal was killed

The terms "inferior to subject property" and "superior to subject property" are ways to use properties that sold for less or more than the subject and the appraiser can point to things like "more or less room", worse location, worse condition...

[Anthera]

Originally Posted by chet everett

The terms "inferior to subject property" and "superior to subject property" are ways to use properties that sold for less or more than the subject and the appraiser can point to things like "more or less room", worse location, worse condition...

Oh, I understand this, but when I HAVE been in the subject property, and it has a 1970's laminate kitchen, but is described as being "superior" to my 2 year old Degulio kitchen, I will giggle. We had an appraiser state that a neighbor's house was in worse condition, but it was perfect, the house just sold low because it was in relo. Appraisers don't go to broker's opens, they appraise houses. Often they just look up the MLS info about the houses and go from there.


When appraisers know what a property has sold for most of the time they will tweak and tweak until it comes in almost exactly at the sale price. If most appraisers were working without this information, there would be more properties coming in lower or higher than the sale price. Sometimes, the nicer house does sell for a lower price because the sellers are very motivated, or the smaller house sells for a premium because its decorated very well.

I won't even go into my opinion about "drive-by" appraisals.