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Relative is selling their house and before putting it up for sale had it appraised by an independent fee appraiser. They came in at $382k. 4 Realtors said to list it at $385k - no higher. They were approached by a buyer going VA and agreed on a price of $395k. Less than 40 days after receiving the regular appraisal, the VA appraiser came in at.... wait for it.... $395k. No new sales in area.
How can this happen? Does not compute.
So before the agreed price had four "experts" that basically said the same thing, it sold for just slightly over and another "expert" came in just slightly higher. I don't see any issues here. People should be glad the appraisers and real estate agents and market all supported essentially the same thing.
Most likely the appraiser who came in at $395,000 did it just to support the sales price. Even so, the $395,000 is very close to the $385,000 recommended by real estate agents. The house might have sold for $10,000 more just because someone needed a house right away and was fine paying a little more for it. Who knows what their motivation was.
Happens all the time, and not just by VA appraisers. If the contract price is within the realm of reason, the appraisal will support that price. Why would an appraiser want to put the kibosh on a done deal if the argument could be made that a reasonable person would pay that price in that market? If appraisers went around killing deals over a few grand that would really be a pain for buyers and sellers. A home's value is not set in stone, even at a given point in time. A home can be worth more to one person than another based upon things that one person values more than another.
As an example, we have 3 cars and 4 motorcycles, several are vintage collectibles, and we aren't about to get rid of any. We moved to a neighborhood where 90% of the homes have 2-car garages. We were looking for a 3 or more car garage and it HAD to be in this neighborhood. When a home with TWO 2-car garages came available, we were willing to pay $50k more than a comparable home with a 2, or even 3-car garage because that's how much that extra parking space was worth TO US. If the VA appraiser had said that it was not worth that much he would have killed the deal for probably the only home in our neighborhood in our price range that could conceivably work for us.
Happens all the time, and not just by VA appraisers. If the contract price is within the realm of reason, the appraisal will support that price. Why would an appraiser want to put the kibosh on a done deal if the argument could be made that a reasonable person would pay that price in that market? If appraisers went around killing deals over a few grand that would really be a pain for buyers and sellers. A home's value is not set in stone, even at a given point in time. A home can be worth more to one person than another based upon things that one person values more than another.
As an example, we have 3 cars and 4 motorcycles, several are vintage collectibles, and we aren't about to get rid of any. We moved to a neighborhood where 90% of the homes have 2-car garages. We were looking for a 3 or more car garage and it HAD to be in this neighborhood. When a home with TWO 2-car garages came available, we were willing to pay $50k more than a comparable home with a 2, or even 3-car garage because that's how much that extra parking space was worth TO US. If the VA appraiser had said that it was not worth that much he would have killed the deal for probably the only home in our neighborhood in our price range that could conceivably work for us.
The value to YOU is not necessarily MARKET value, which is defined as "most probable price". Killing deals is what an appraiser should do when the market won't support the value. And yes, an appraiser could lose his/her license or worse.
But who would be making a complaint that an appraiser valued a home at a price that was slightly above market, but which was agreed to by the seller and the buyer? Not the realtor who would be getting a larger commission.
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