patrick.net

In my experience the buyer (or lender) is supposed to hire his/her own inspector to ferret out those problems to see if the property is worth paying for. If you, the buyer, can point to similar homes in the area with newer features and and better appliances, and the seller is really motivated/desperate, you can use those points in your bargaining for a lower price or the completion of repairs. The final sale can be contingent on getting the ducting reattached or the roof patched or whatever.

A relative of mine is currently selling his house (he has owned it for ~20 years so he should not lose money on the deal) and the agent told him his market is an FHA first-time homebuyer, so he should go ahead and get the termite report (and something else that is normally the buyer's responsibility) to facilitate the sale.

One problem with requiring working appliances is that if they have to be replaced, the seller tends to get the crummiest, cheapest old junk and stick it in there. Appraisal is such an art, anyway; but to complicate it with the difference between a Viking sub-zero and an old Westinghouse icebox is probably just too much for the appraiser's mind. In CA we have to leave the window treatments (probably other states, too). How do you quantify drapes? Especially when the last person left some pug-ugly substitute! Or when you have drapes that match your bedspread and furnishings, but you have to hang up something else to show the property, or make sure the buyer knows that drapes do not convey. And tile flooring, and granite counters-- you'd have to actuarially calculate when the product was installed and how fresh the design was and the wear suffered-- vs. a comparable home with carpet and formica; vs. a home with plastic laminate and corian; vs. whatever.

Maybe if there were two appraisals done, one on behalf of the buyer, one on behalf of the seller, and the two totals averaged. Yes!! Like that would ever happen. Make sure you get a homebuyer's warranty and set aside money for whatever crashes the day after your policy expires.

Sorry, I'm wrong, it wasn't the termite, it was something else.

Our appraisal discussed everything you mentioned TechG, and the fact that our place had some upgrades compared to a similar house with no upgrades was reflected in the appraisal. Maybe more can been analyzed, but does the fact that a dishwasher may not clean dishes perfectly really affect your decision to purchase something that costs $200k, $500k, $1M+ depending on your area?

Also, when you buy, the lender is probably going to require you to get home warranty insurance which covers the major appliances for at least a year. So from their perspective, the appliances aren't much of a concern.

Appraisals are only what the market climate dictates.

When the RE market is hot, every blemish, blight and crappy curb appeal is over looked. Every house is a diamond in the rough. That's how you get modest starter homes in typical shady and seedy neighborhoods, that are worth the same thing as the houses that sold in more middle class neighborhoods.

On the down side, every thing is taken into consideration. Even if the place get's a triple "A" rating on the 5 point inspection report. The house is valued lower than the average listing price. My 2,000 sq ft house was appraised 10K less than I offered for it, which the lesser value is what I ultimately paid. The drastic price discrepancy was due to the fact that more than 60% of the houses in my neighborhood are 2br houses 1,000 feet or less. And those homes make up 90% of the sales in the last three years. They were the last bought at super high inflated prices, as they were afraid to get priced out for ever and was desperate for anything. These houses were then the first houses dumped and walked away from. The bigger houses in this neighborhood, people tend to hang on to.

So a house like mine will ride these 2brs all the way down to the bottom. But I'm sure that when RE starts to be healthy again. Big houses in this neighborhood will be a premium. The large stock was the first houses to go in the bubble, many of them flipped several times. It wasn't until all of the big houses were out of play, that they small houses started going crazy.

In a down market, I think the biggest thing sellers are doing to shoot them selves in the foot, is by putting it on the market with lack of Cub appeal. And can we please plant some landscaping back on these properties. I think the last three years is proof enough, it wasn't the plants that was making those houses less desirable, it was the price. All of these houses now either dated shacks, in dire need of some landscaping to give them charm and appeal or they are dated shacks, speckled with the modern douche bag appointments, still in dire need of landscaping to give it character and curb appeal.

When I was shopping for a house, when I drove up to the place, those places with old growth tropical landscaping, I gave the asking price better consideration, that those that dared to think I was in the market for 5,000 cinder-blocks neatly stacked on a grass/dirt lot with bits of timber and glass strewn about.

Put some damn plants in your yard, this is Florida, it's really a dreary crappy depressing hot stagnate place, the only pleasure one can get out side, is being surrounded by nice tropical foliage and the shade the provide.

I never really understood how a house could be appraised either. Unlike, say, cars, houses tend to be quite different from one another (I guess this doesn't apply to developments with cookie-cutter designs). Also, there are factors such as location; even in the same neighborhood, one house could be on a cul-de-sac and another on a busy street. How's that valued? What about the condition of the house, appliances, or landscaping?

I think that the appraisal is a starting point that assumes a lot of things are equal or don't affect the value. The actual price is negotiated from that point and will depend on the details.

I had a property on the market - the bank that I had the loan with had an "online appraisal" feature which showed $390k.

The highest shortsale offer I got was $330k (and they wanted the moon to boot). This is lower than the price the schmuck I bought it from paid in 2002 and just a little higher than when it was built in 2000.

My realtard said it was worth $400k.

The loss mit person insisted that the house was worth $430k based on a "drive by appraisal" by another realtard and rejected every offer (not even giving me the option to get an unsecured loan on a reasonable "deficiency"). Hell, if I could sell it for $430k it wouldn't be a shortsale... After being on the market for eight months don't they "get it" that the highest offer is what it is really worth?

Zillow says it is 435k but the house across the street on the same sized postage stamp piece of land with 4 connecting backyards is showing $475k whereas my property is water front (but not deep enough for a boat...unless you consider a kayak a boat...).

I've taken it off the market for now - will probably take a beating down the road but what the hell. I would LIKE to move into a different school district - but can't unless I rent this one out. Renting it out might be doable but I'm in no mood to be a landlord. The property tax on a rental is 3x owner occupied ... yet another subsidy to homeowners ... or is it a penalty to the landlords?

Does property condition affect appraisal? I'm sure they do - but these electronic appraisal systems are for crap. In the bubble days, an appraisal was a rubber stamp to NAR so the bank would finance the house and the realtard could get their commission. I'm not sure who the appraisers are beholden to today. Isn't it odd (in my limited experience anyway) that appraisals are almost always the same as the sale price - to the dollar?

EightBall says

The property tax on a rental is 3x owner occupied … yet another subsidy to homeowners … or is it a penalty to the landlords?

We seriously need that here in South Florida.

over 1/3 of the homes have been bought by investors, and for pennies on the dollar mind you, let's not kid our selves. These guys didn't pay top dollar like all of the other home owners. Their only interest is slapping cheap paint on it, and filling it with Rent subsidized people they are killing the values of homes even more, with the people they tend to rent to. There's no pride of ownership from these people or they folks they rent to.

I say if it's a multifamily building and not a brownstone choppped up house with two or three rentals made out of a single family home, then those people should only pay the regular tax, but those renting out, a chopped up single family home or a single family home period, should pay more taxes.

Nomograph says

I’ve looked at dozens of appraisals and the *all* contain that information. They specifically look at the age and condition of mechanical systems, roof, finishings, etc. and add or subtract based on the findings.

So your saying your appraiser was up on the roof looking at it's condition? Turned on the appliances? Flushed the toilets? I think not. While they may have noted the age of the house, and the present of appliances, they did not investigate them anymore than that. Does this 50 year old house have a 50 year old roof or was it replaced last year? Are the appliances original? Top rated appliances that do not work are not more valuable then cheaper appliances that do work. All the appraisers that even appraised houses I owned just walked around the house taking notes, and did not touch anything. You might hire a home inspector to touch these things and point out to you violations and things that may cause you problems in the future, but it doesn't affect the appraisal at all.

Tenouncetrout says

We seriously need that here in South Florida.

You can have it - when I got the $15k property tax bill on a "new build" I did years ago I didn't think it was warranted - hell, no one had even lived in it yet. All this because my dumbass builder partner got the CO completed before we had a buyer. It would have been less than $500 if he hadn't done that.