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What does an appraiser look at when appraising a home?

Posted: Feb 9, 2010

Do they do like a prospective homeowner would do - look in the kitchen cabinets, open windows to make sure they work, make comments about the paint and lack of granite countertops, check out the closets, etc.

;

interestingly enough - mt

[ In Reply To ..]
during a recent appraisal of our home for refinancing purposes back in 2009, the guy seemed only interested in the total square footage and size of the bedrooms. He didn't even look at anything like an inspector would for the closing of a house (windows, doors, repairs needed, etc.) I'm sure if there was an obvious problem like a roof leak that may have been a different story. I asked about granite, etc. (which we do not have). He said in this market things like that did not matter as much anymore. I thought that was weird, but then our neighbors had the same company appraise their house (and they have granite), and our appraisal ended up higher because we have 200 sq feet more house than them. He said we would be LUCKY to even get a 30% return on our upgrades like granite, etc., so don't worry about it for right now.

My appraiser was more concerned with comparing - Tired&CrankyMT

[ In Reply To ..]
my home to other homes in the area similar to it, but not quite similar (I had a Colonial - he compared it to Ranch style homes), then knocked off a few thousand here and there on the appraisal for not having exactly the same add-ons as the other homes (only a 1 car garage instead of a 2-car garage, but I did build a huge 26 x 16 foot deck in the yard that no one else had and had the driveway and sides of the house paved, enough room to park 6 cars). He only took a quick look around the interior of the house, concentrating on number of rooms, bathrooms, closets, no measuring for size of the rooms. He really low-balled the house's value, appraising it only a tad higher than the purchase price - something you wouldn't think possible dealing with a new construction home just under 3 years old plus improvements I made to the exterior and interior.

Appraisers - old mt

[ In Reply To ..]
I think as noted above the basic size of your house and comps in the neighborhood, which is usually what they go with. Be sure it is clean and airy. Be sure to have a list of upgrades you put in to the house- that helped get our price up a bit. Good Luck!

Our appraiser was in and out in 5 minutes. - Sunshine State MT

[ In Reply To ..]
He walked through the whole house, took pictures of every room inside and took a picture of the outside and that was it. Basically was interested in the square footage (which they already know what it is) and if we added on to any part of the house. They basically just compare it to other homes in your area around the same square footage.

He really did not care if we had granite countertops, upgraded appliances, etc.

suggestion..... - rms

[ In Reply To ..]
We are trying to do a refi and it was suggested to us by our lender that we have a local realtor do a complimentary "price opinion". We did this and were able to give it to the appraiser to help support the value we need to get for our home. Each appraiser is different, but I would definitely ask for recommendations. Obviously the more thorough the appraiser is the more accurate your value would be. I was able to give ours kind of a personal tour and point out all of the little extras that he would not have noticed otherwise.

1-1/2 hour appraisal - FriendlyMT

[ In Reply To ..]
Ours was that long and he just kept talking about the character of the house and was impressed that all 3 bedrooms were nice size with full size closets. Didn't say much about anything else in the house. Measured the rooms downstairs and just mostly took his dear sweet time.

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