Selling Your Home…. Twice!
Finding the perfect buyer is only half the battle. When listing your house, you market to prospective buyers, but also bear the burden of selling the bank on your home’s value. An appraiser may be called upon to appraise a property before it is sold, mortgaged, taxed, insured, or developed. The bank will want to know that the financing they provide can be supported by the collateral. The appraisal is a key component of the home buying process and sometimes the most challenging. It can make or break the entire deal!
A “home appraisal” is a comprehensive report that determines the value of your property based on numbers of factors that the appraiser is obligated to in making his/her assessment.
These factors may include:
- Location/ Neighborhood
- Property and Dwelling Square Footage
- Number of Bedrooms
- Number of Bathrooms
- Number of Spaces in Garage for Cars
- Amount of Useable Storage Space in Basement, Attic….
- Updates and Renovations
- Structural Materials Used in Construction
- Comparable Sales of Like Properties
With escalating prices, selling the bank on your home may be even more difficult than selling to a speculative buyer. The appraiser analyzes the property compared to comparable homes that have sold, typically within the previous six months, and may be confined to a radius search when finding like properties. In a surging market, it can become a difficult task for appraisers to find adequate, comparable sales that will help defend the selling price. In many markets in California, supply and demand is dictating the list price and values are increasing rapidly. Some sellers are rolling the dice and hoping the market will catch up and justify the selling price.
If the appraiser fails to find value, buyer and seller may enter back into negotiations or possibly cancel their contract. As minimalistic as a .33% difference in appraisal value might seem, it could be equal to thousands of dollars that a buyer or seller has to come up with at closing to make up for the difference in value (KCM.com).
If you are planning on entering the housing market this year, contact one of our offices and meet with a REALTOR® who can guide you through obstacles as these that may arise. Our team of experienced professionals happily welcomes all challenges!