Huh
I don't know what to make of the appraiser's visit. He wasn't here 15 minutes. He wandered around making a sketch, took some pictures of the outside, and left. I thought he'd be there at least an hour and that I'd be able to slip the "magic number" into the conversation. The woman from the mortgage company had even indicated that could very well happen, when she explained the process to me.
He said he'd been to my house before, shortly before we bought it, and that he'd dug out his "old file" before coming out. He noticed the kitchen was new, the floors were refinished and that a "serious deck" had been added to the back. It wasn't until he left, though, that I realized he hadn't mentioned the biggest improvement of all--the siding--and I wondered if he realized that it was new. (I had thought I'd get a chance to discuss improvements in more detail, so didn't think to mention it when he was inside the house.) He knew about the windows and storm door because I'd wanted to wait until they were installed before he came out. He certainly didn't look closely at the windows, though.
He said he'd have the information to the mortgage company by this evening, so I guess I'll call tomorrow and see what it is. I'm not sure what I expected, really, but this wasn't it. He said he could tell we'd done a lot of work and that the house looked really good, but that's not making me feel much better now. It's all fine and good if it works out, but if it doesn't I'm going to have a serious gripe.
posted by SMB @ 6:41 PM
4 Comments:
We got an appraisal when we got our mortgage insurance removed. The guy showed up and didn't spend a ton of time there. He didn't even really note any improvements, although we'd done a ton. He was mostly concerned with square footage. When we got a copy of the appraisal, I got the sense that the "comps" from the neighborhood drove our house value more than anything. Anyway, our appraisal came back plenty high enough and we were able to remove the mortgage insurance. If you've lived there a couple years, my guess is that you'll be in good shape too. Good luck!!
Hazzard
I'm surprised you even saw him in person ;) Through our purchase and two refis we only had one appraiser who actually took digital photos (of the outside) and took her own measurements of the grounds, etc. She also included digital pics of comps etc and was the best appraisal we'd seen so far.
None of them have seen the inside of the house...it's sort of a racket at this point with the way the mortgage business is.
Not sure how it pans out with getting rid of PMI, but definitely in refis, the bank wants to loan you the money (unless it's outrageous) and the appraiser works for the bank ergo...you almost always appraise for what you need (and a little extra)
and they don't really talk to you about the appraisal either...that is somehow seen as a conflict. you get to see it AFTER it's been submitted to the bank. its just weird.
Well, this is certainly turning into an education. :)
I'm glad to hear that you two had somewhat similar experiences. I'm still a little nervous (I think it'll be close, no matter what), but I at least feel better about how things went today, and I no longer feel like I got ripped off. Thanks!
I used to work for an appraiser when I was in college. They don't really care about improvements unless it puts more square footage to the house...all they will do is look at three house with basically the same square footage and land and put the price close to those three. I used to go and take photos of the houses that the property was being compared with for the reports. Definitely a racket...
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