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So, I'm looking to refinance and we received the appraisal and it seemed low. Along with other glaring errors (one comp was 3 years old; the physical description of 1 comp was entirely inaccurate, etc), I noticed that the adjustments for age of the house adversely affected the numbers. My house is in an historic district. The three comps that are used are NOT in the historic district. So, would they actually even be considered comparables? And if so, why am I being penalized because these houses are younger than mine?
Homes ~should~ be compared to homes of similar age, if possible. But if there are so few comps that the appraiser had to go back 3 years? You might not be able to choose only historic homes to look at.
Much more information is needed about your area, neighborhood, local market and condition in order to have a fruitful conversation. Can you give us any more to go on?
Good market...Northern Virginia, but I am out in horse / wine country, so houses may sit to find the right buyer. The appraiser did NOT have to go back 3 years..there were two recent sales that he did not include (not historic district, but none of his were).
You do sometimes find this happens with an appraiser who is inexperienced or only used to doing planned new build communities. In NoVa I wonder if this is the case as there's a ton of development. But Middleburg is certainly not known for that. Was he/she local or did they send them from a central office? I would ask for a reconsiders with the more recent sales.
The only time I've seen such idiocy is when the appraiser was hired in from a distance and from an area very unlike the one he/she is appraising and they really don't care.
and if it's a refi appraisal - especially with no cash out - they're just making sure the LTV is still below 80%. Your appraised value is not put into any database for the world to see should you decide to sell in 2 years.
We have this problem. We live on an island. It is a unique community and homes not on the island are not comps. Our house is 182 years old. We moved it form-the other side of the island. It has a lot of unusual features. We are on the water, but do not own the waterfront/access whereas almost all other homes on the waterfront have water access. We have a finished basement with 2 bedrooms a bathroom and a large game room. However it is not allowed to be counted in the square footage. So they assign a seemingly random value to it. We have a swimming pool that is in a greenhouse that is made of 10' segments on wheels so it can be opened up, but it is sorrt of an indoor pool. Normally pools are a zero on the appraisal, but some appeasers give it a value ($5 - $30K). We have a sun-room off the kitchen. It is not an enclosed porch, it was built as a room. However it has concrete floors and it is narrow and long. It is heated. Some appraisers count it int he square footage some don't. Tax appraiser does not count it so many appraisers just go by what the tax appraiser says the square footage is, while others do their won measurements. even the measurements vary. We have a separate carriage house. Upstairs is finished as an office, but it is permitted only as storage (we "store" my desk, computer equipment a futon etc up there). Some appraisers assign it a value, some do not.
We have lots of unique features. Tankless water heater, high tech commercial grade boiler for heat, etc. Some appraises use higher end comps because of these things while others use lower end comps because the house is old and some parts need some work. One used a house I very nearly bought to tear down and put our house on the lot.
There are no comps. there are few sales of homes on the waterfront and none are comparable. either way nicer, junky, tiny ect. The appraisers have to use what they have and make random adjustments for the differences. One appraiser used "comps" from the mainland across the river. The communities have almost no similarities.
As a result of these issues, our appraisals vary considerably. Once back to back appraisals were $105,000 different. If it is important enough you can demand (and pay for) another appraisal. However it may come back the same or nearl the same and you just wasted $450.
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