Health & Fitness
“Appraisals Aren’t Always Equal”
Clients of mine were in the process of purchasing a historic home in a village setting. Their credit was great, they were putting $100,000 down on a $400,000 purchase, so far all was great.
The appraisal was completed and the value came in above the sales price, but we had a problem. There were no comparables that were considered historic homes. The home was built between 1880 and 1890, the style was a Victorian. All the comps were from the same town and all were colonials built between 1998 and 2009.
All sold above the subject and all in a similar price range. The lender went back to the appraiser asking for the comps to be in a similar “vintage” to the subject. There weren’t any sales in the same town, other than one short sale and the closest similar comps were 40 miles away.
I asked the selling agent to see if they could find any sales that did not come through MLS and as luck would have it, because of some great homework, two comps were supplied to the appraiser that were within 10 miles, which eventually satisfied the lender.
The unfortunate thing, the appraiser really didn’t want to do any extra work, as he felt the lender was being unreasonable. Even though I felt the lender was being unreasonable, they were the ones loaning the money for the mortgage. It’s tough when egos get in the way of getting the transaction accomplished for the buyers.