How to Get the Highest Appraisal Value for your Home?

When you are involved in selling, or buying real estate, or just refinancing your current mortgage, you will deal with appraisals.  Appraisal is a formal valuation of your home's market value by a certified appraiser.

Appraisal value is very important for the seller.  Just imagine you have your house listed at $400,000, and your buyers agree to buy it at that price in the contract.  But, when the appraisal comes in, it is at only $375,000!  Your buyer will definitely want to re-negotiate the price down!  The thing is if you don't try to do the things that I advise below, the next appraisal will be likely around the same value as this one.

On the other hand, as a homeowner, who are trying to refinance his or her home for better rates, or to eliminate current PMI, or to get the maximum cash out to buy an investment home, you will want to get the highest value possible (without any major improvement)  because sometimes that extra thousands of dollars can make or break the deal!

So, what can you do, as the seller or borrowers, to get the highest appraisal value for the subject property?

First of all,  Appraisal is mainly based on the approximate market value of homes recently sold in your area, they also are based on currently listings in the area.  However, no homes are exactly the same; so, you can get higher or lower value depending on your actual home and how you present it to the eye of the appraiser.

Second of all, as a seller or a borrower, you can't choose your own appraiser, so don't even try to find friend who is an appraiser to do that evaluation for you.  If the deal involves financing, lenders will  pick an appraiser from their approved network to do the job.

So, again, what else can you do to make your house have the best appraisal value in front of an appraiser?  As a real estate and mortgage broker, who deals with appraisals everyday, I can give you the valuable insider's information below.

BTW, with money, you can make your home gain more value, but what I am presenting in this post is just simple & quick fixes that do not require money and still help you achieve that goal to some extent.  If you are seller, please wait for my next article that will list out extensive tips on how to make your home more valuable and desirable.

Before the appraisal:
1. For the outside, make sure your grass is green and mowed, dead leaves and weeds are removed, all water hoses put away, the front of the garage is degreased and cleaned.
2. Clean the inside of the house thoroughly: have carpet cleaned, have the kitchen area degreased and tidy.
3. Unclutter every room: put away things that lay around the house such as toys, game boxes, wirings, and extra furniture.
4. Keep all bathrooms fresh and clean and all faucets and shower heads in good working conditions.
5. Keep all bedrooms really neat and lovely: maybe put on new pillows and comforter.
6. If there are any cracks on the ceilings, you must repair them all and repaint.  If not, appraiser will require a roof technician to inspect the roof, and fix all roof problems, before the loan can be closed!  This will cost you a lot of money and a lot of time to have this done, because it is likely that our roof needs to be fixed.
7. Install smoke detector and carbon dioxide detectors in the house.  This will save you $150 for a re-inspection just because of these missing items.
8. Have all paper (including the MLS info, city permits) that was involved when you bought the house just in case the appraiser asks for them.
9. Ask your listing agent to look up all public records of this house for you to see there are any mistakes there. If there is, get all necessary documents ready to prove the public record is wrong.

When the appraiser comes:
1. Keep the lights on, and all curtains opened.
2. Turn on the air-conditioning or ceiling fans, or open windows for fresh air to come in.
3. Turn on scented candles or keep air fresheners on in all rooms.. 
4. Be friendly with the appraiser, show them around the house and point out the best features of your house.
5. Show them before and after pictures of remodeling projects that you have done in the last 5 years.
6. List out on a spreadsheet all remodeling cost of each project you recently have done on your home and give it to the appraiser.
7. Ask the appraiser if the appraisal can be at least at the value you think it is. A lot of them are nice and can tell you what he or she thinks.
8. Make sure you clear up all concerns that the appraiser has about your home such as square footage, room additions' permits because public records might have them inaccurately and therefore causes the appraiser to evaluate it wrongly.

In the event the appraisal comes in much lower than you anticipate, you can still fix it by requesting the appraiser to re-evaluate their report by giving them solid reasons showing them why you think the value should be higher.  Your listing agent or loan officer should be able to help you fight for that.

If you need professional comps of your home and any other advice on helping you get the highest appraisal value, you can contact me through emails. Thanks for reading.

Dana Nguyen
Dalihan Realty & Financial
R.E. Broker Lic. #: 01375022