patrick.net

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.