Your Home Didn’t Appraise—What’s Next?

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Recently, we had an issue with an appraisal on a house that really should have appraised. That inspired today’s question: What do you do if your home doesn’t appraise?

First, it’s important to note that the buyer’s mortgage company is the one who sends the appraiser to your home. The appraiser is from a third-party company not associated with that mortgage company.

So if this happens to you, you should first make sure that your Realtor brings comparable listings when meeting with the appraiser. In our appraisal issue, we met the appraiser with the comps. The house should have appraised, but for whatever reason, the appraiser didn’t use our comps; the comps they did use weren’t the correct ones. They ended up either subtracting value for conditions that didn’t warrant the subtraction, or they didn’t add enough value for features that warranted the value.

We refuted the appraisal report and sent it back to the appraiser. Sometimes it’s hard to get the appraiser to change their minds once they’ve sent in the appraisal report, but we also sent that refutation directly to the mortgage company, and we also had the buyer apply to a second mortgage company.

Once a buyer has given all their documentation to a mortgage company, it’s sometimes easier to apply to a second mortgage company—shortening the process to between a week and 10 days. The buyer was on board with this because, of course, they wanted the house, and the seller was on board because they wanted the deal to work out. It’s important that buyers understand that just because a house doesn’t appraise, it doesn’t mean that they’re overpaying for it.

If you have any questions, feel free to give me a call. I’d love to speak with you.

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