Appraisals as Deal Scuttlers (Hope: bank owned, short sales, 2009)

[WJFM]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/re...te/23lizo.html

[Jon_Sack]

Good article . Not only are appraisals wrecking new sales , they wrecked my re-fi . Appraisal came in low under the 80/20 mark . The bank wanted to do PMI or 2 loans . So we just kept the rate we had . Hopefully we will be able to get the rate down in next few years . 450 application fee and 400 appraisal fee down drain

[75alum]

The article posted paints a very real picture of what is going on in the market today. I had my home nearly sold. I priced my home to comps in the area and my realtor + my buyer and her realtor thought the price I had posted was more than fair. Enter the appraiser from Connecticut. My home is in Michigan. The appraisal came in. 60,000 below my asking price. Comparable homes in my area typically sell for $85 - $95 dollars per sq ft. This clown had my home appraised at $58 per sq ft. Why? His comps were short sales and foreclosures. Worse, the 2 homes he chose as the closest to my home were bank owned and over 1000 sq ft less in size plus 3 years old than my home. This kind of crap is killing the market for private sales. If this continues, I would suggest private sellers should go short sale on the lenders. If they want to live in that world, keep them there. Once again, gov't intervention screws up free enterprise. Nice work, Cuomo.

[zulu400]

Originally Posted by 75alum

The article posted paints a very real picture of what is going on in the market today. I had my home nearly sold. I priced my home to comps in the area and my realtor + my buyer and her realtor thought the price I had posted was more than fair. Enter the appraiser from Connecticut. My home is in Michigan. The appraisal came in. 60,000 below my asking price. Comparable homes in my area typically sell for $85 - $95 dollars per sq ft. This clown had my home appraised at $58 per sq ft. Why? His comps were short sales and foreclosures. Worse, the 2 homes he chose as the closest to my home were bank owned and over 1000 sq ft less in size plus 3 years old than my home. This kind of crap is killing the market for private sales. If this continues, I would suggest private sellers should go short sale on the lenders. If they want to live in that world, keep them there. Once again, gov't intervention screws up free enterprise. Nice work, Cuomo.

Sorry to hear that, but short sales will mess it up. We hear this all the time that your house is only as good as your neighborhood.... it was all good for the past few years, but now we are experiencing this issue throughout the US. Having said that, unless there are a lot of short sales, the appraiser should have chosen some regular sales too.
I would also suggest getting a 2nd opinion (maybe you can pay for it if the buyers walking) because comps from 2 houses is not good enough, my banks appraiser got 5 comparable houses.