A house appraisal is supposed to gauge the value of a home at that given time. Someone comes to the house in question, looks over the square footage and improvements that have been made. Then, he compares that house to others in the area, to see how it stacks up. Well, that is how it is supposed to happen.
I'm here to tell you that it is not at all that way now. It is almost pointless to make improvements to your house, if they do not add square footage or size to the garage. The reason I'm saying this is because with today's appraisal process, any other improvements don't make a difference. They don't play a part in the evaluation of the house.I came over here on my lunch break, to meet the guy that was doing the appraisal on our house. We are getting it done because we are doing a refinance (crazy low rates) and they needed to re-evaluate it to see if we have 20% equity in it to get rid of the PMI (Private Mortgage Insurance). It started off funny. When I pulled up, I saw a truck parked on the street. It was more in front of the neighbor's house than ours, so I thought it might not be the appraiser. There was nobody in the truck, so I convinced myself that I had beat him there. I open the garage, pull my car in and check the mail and bring up the trash can. As I step inside and set the mail down, I see that someone is in the backyard. Yep, our backyard. It is the appraiser. I don't know why he felt like he could just let himself in the gate, even thought I was there when I said I would be.So, he's out there measuring the distance of the house and recording it all on his mock-up of our house plan. I decide to be super nice to the guy anyway, because he can really make or break what our home value hits at. I step out onto the back porch and just start joking around with him and introducing myself. We talk for a bit and then he's ready to come inside.As we step inside, I show him that I built a floor-to-ceiling (pictured) bookshelf/china cabinet...that is 8' wide. It is finished with bead board behind all of it, and painted with over three coats of paint to give it a very refined look. He kind of looks it over, makes some notes, and moves on. He looks at the rest of the inside of the house and takes some pictures and he is just about done. I walk him out the front door to show him all of the landscaping that we have added. Basically, everything that is in the front yard was NOT there when we moved in...including grass. There was barely any grass to mow when we bought the house. Since then, we've won "Yard of the Month" two years in a row in the spring.He goes out to the garage, measures a couple of things, and then leaves.At this point, I am expecting a really good appraisal, because it seemed like the guy and I had rapport. I was....wrong. Even thought, the appraisal could have come in much, much lower than it did, I don't feel like it was fairly graded.He used three other houses in the neighborhood as comparable subjects. Two of them had absolutely NO improvements to the yard, front or back. They still had the basic yopon shrubs that every builder seems to use. In fact, I think both of them had the plain, white garage door that had never been painted...just had the primer on there. One of the houses he used, was a bit better looking than those others, but still not quite possessing the "curb appeal" that ours now does. It at least had a better looking yard than those others, but about half of what we have in ours. We have planted multiple crepe myrtles (Natchez ones that droop and are white), a maple tree...knockout rose bushes...and many other shrubs that keep foliage year-round. When we got the appraisal back, we saw that it came in about $2500 under what it should have...even according to his research. He used a couple of different methods, but landed on the comparison method....well, because it was easiest. He "estimated" that the homes in this area were about worth such and such. Then he "estimated" that the homes he used to compare were similarly equipped as ours. Then, he just took what those homes sold for, even though some of those sales were well beyond the six month period that you're supposed to use, and averaged them to come up with our value. Wow! Really special there, guy. You didn't even need to come by the house for that. You could have done that from the comfort of your own home. Why, if they are going to record things about the improvements made to a house, are they not going to actually IMPROVE the value of the house? I mean, if I build a full-blown china cabinet, right on the end of the dining room, that improves the room and the overall house. Plus, it's not like I'm taking it with me when we move...it's what is called a fixture...immovable. Also, I was told, "Well, 'curb appeal' really doesn't add value to a house." Since when? It could be the difference between you getting someone to look at your house rather than the one next to you with a for sale sign in the yard.All of that to say, we did not get the PMI taken off. Because of what this guy appraised our house for, we will have to pay for that until we own 20% of the equity. What...a...crook......er....I mean, crock.Bruce A. Ulrich
1,000 Words Photography
http://bruceaulrich.zenfolio.com
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