Any appraisers here?

[thestrangebrew1]

Looking at a house and possibly going to put an offer in. I'm curious, if there's no comps, what does an appraiser base the appraisal on? The house we're interested in is located in a neighborhood that doesn't typically have homes go on the market. We're in a very small town, and a smaller house on approx. the same size lot sold about 8 months ago, but in terms of other similarities, it pretty much stops there. That house sold for ~ $272k, this house we're interested in is listed at $344,900, which is crazy to me considering my town's market. Just curious how an appraiser would go about appraising this property with no good comps.

 

[boomerang]

Looking at a house and possibly going to put an offer in. I'm curious, if there's no comps, what does an appraiser base the appraisal on? The house we're interested in is located in a neighborhood that doesn't typically have homes go on the market. We're in a very small town, and a smaller house on approx. the same size lot sold about 8 months ago, but in terms of other similarities, it pretty much stops there. That house sold for ~ $272k, this house we're interested in is listed at $344,900, which is crazy to me considering my town's market. Just curious how an appraiser would go about appraising this property with no good comps.

Appraiser's use the sales of other homes to assist in determining the current value of any home. It doesn't need to be in the same neighborhood, or on the same street or even in the same town for that matter, but the closer it is, and the more of them there are, the better. They use a lot of different criteria to assess the value of a home not just comps.

I took the course to be a RE appraiser many, many moons ago but never made it official. Frankly, I found the job way too boring. And it was too long ago to remember all the intimate details but I do recall being surprised at just how much goes into the task. Lots of calculations and formula's are applied. How in depth the appraisal gets from a documentation perspective depends on what the appraisal is for and to a great extent what the customer is willing to pay.

Assuming the thread will continue, what is the basis for your question? If the home is on the market for that price, there may very likely have been no appraiser involved. RE people may have come up with the number or worse, the sellers may have come up with a value that for all you know has no basis in reality. Is the value coming from the tax rolls? Is it a foreclosure? I think you may see what I'm getting at.

If it's a house you're truly interested in, you could get a professional appraisal for your purposes for several hundred dollars. If you hire someone they are obviously working for you. The lender isn't, the RE company isn't and the taxing authority certainly isn't.

 

[herm0016]

remember that if you put in an offer, and have the appraisal contingency, you can renegotiate the offer after the bank does their appraisal and it comes in lower than your offer.

 

[thestrangebrew1]

Assuming the thread will continue, what is the basis for your question? If the home is on the market for that price, there may very likely have been no appraiser involved. RE people may have come up with the number or worse, the sellers may have come up with a value that for all you know has no basis in reality. Is the value coming from the tax rolls? Is it a foreclosure? I think you may see what I'm getting at.

I'm just curious more than anything. My agent has no clue why the house is listed the way it is. I just checked listings after I posted this and oddly enough, another house around the corner is listed at $270k on same size lot but about 600 sq. ft. smaller so I'm guessing that will help on this property's appraisal. The property we may be putting an offer on is not in foreclosure, nor is the value coming from tax rolls. Last year, it was assessed at market rate for $271k There is no way market rate would jump from $271k to $344k in a year.

 

[thestrangebrew1]

remember that if you put in an offer, and have the appraisal contingency, you can renegotiate the offer after the bank does their appraisal and it comes in lower than your offer.

Yea we'll def. be adding this in. There's a few other things that need to happen. The house has only been on the market for 5 days and when we saw it we jumped on it, even though we had no intention of buying anytime soon. There will have to be a few more contingencies involved like the sale of our house to put the 20% down, and we've been told in order for the current owner to move out of town, will be contingent upon them selling this property etc.

 

[boomerang]

I'm just curious more than anything. My agent has no clue why the house is listed the way it is. I just checked listings after I posted this and oddly enough, another house around the corner is listed at $270k on same size lot but about 600 sq. ft. smaller so I'm guessing that will help on this property's appraisal. The property we may be putting an offer on is not in foreclosure, nor is the value coming from tax rolls. Last year, it was assessed at market rate for $271k There is no way market rate would jump from $271k to $344k in a year.

Then it may very well be a number that the seller pulled out of their hat. If they are grossly overpriced their only hope is a buyer that loves the house, is willing to pay over market value and has a lot of down or can pay cash for the place.

 

[thestrangebrew1]

Then it may very well be a number that the seller pulled out of their hat. If they are grossly overpriced their only hope is a buyer that loves the house, is willing to pay over market value and has a lot of down or can pay cash for the place.

I think this is the case. We may just put an offer and pay for appraisal and see what happens. As I understand, the seller is going through divorce, youngest kid is heading off to college, and she has family the next town over so she wants to move. If she's desperate, maybe she just wants to unload and move on. Or she could just hold out for the buyer who really wants the house.