Appraiser

[vibrantabyss.livejournal.com]

I checked under business services and real estate and didn't find anything useful.

Has anyone used an appraiser (for condo valuation) that they liked?  Or does everyone just go with whoever the bank tosses at them?

Comments

[frugaljoe.livejournal.com]

I'm definitely interested in this answer.

[wintahill.livejournal.com]

Not sure how helpful this will be, but I just had my condo appraised about one week ago. It was setup through the bank I am working with, East Cambridge Savings Bank, for a refinancing I am trying to do right now. Who they sent over was http://www.appraisersgroup.com out of Belmont. The actual appraiser was a local Somerville guy and it was pretty quick and painless. They, the bank, charged me about $350 for that. I am not sure what the price would be if you contact them directly though.

[ll-02143.livejournal.com]

I am a certified residential real estate appraiser and I live in Somerville. You really have very little choice in terms of choosing an appraiser for any mortgage-related transactions anymore. If the appraisal is for a refinance or a purchase, the bank is going to "choose" your appraiser for you. The bank generally has to randomly "choose" their appraiser from a pool of appraisers they've already pre-qualified in house or choose them through an AMC (appraisal management company) which is a third-party service. The days of obtaining your own appraisal and submitting it to the bank is over for the majority of residential borrowers. The regulations have changed quite a bit over the past few years (thank you 2007-2008 crash and subsequent HVCC).

So, you certainly can try and get an appraisal yourself and see if your bank will take it. However, it's been a while since I've seen it actually be accepted that way, so don't waste your money and check with your bank first!
-LL

[laryu.livejournal.com]

I'm not the OP, but I just want to point out there are reasons to get a private appraisal that don't involve a bank financing requirement. If a co-owner wants to buy out a fellow co-owner, for example, but needs to put a value on it.

[frugaljoe.livejournal.com]

We're looking to refinance our house in Kendall. We bought in the summer of 2009, and have done a good bit of renovating (gutted kitchen, new drywall in 3 of 4 rooms, significant renovations elsewhere, added heat in the basement to make a livable space.)

According to Zillow we're up about 10% over our purchase price (we paid a a fair, if not pretty good price, I think). Given the amount of work we've done, I would expect that the house would appraise for more than the zestimate.

I presume that the best way to find that the only real way to get the FMV of the house in advance of the bank appraisal for the refi is to hire an appraiser? In our case, this matters as we may be about to skip PMI this time around on the refi if the house does appraise for at or above the zestimate.

[somerfriend.livejournal.com]

Don't invest too much time in thinking about the zillow website. It is widely known to be far off much of the time. I personally wouldn't want to pay for 2 appraisals. Just go forward with the refi, most of the closing costs occur after the appraisal anyway so it is not like you're are locking yourself into a bunch of expense at the risk of not getting rid of PMI.

Also getting two appraisers can be pretty far off from each other, pretty hard to tell when going into a refinance where you are going to land. I would just spend 30 minutes studying per square foot selling prices for condos in the same area that have the same # of bedrooms and are on the same floor if you want to get a general idea before getting started.

[frugaljoe.livejournal.com]

Awesome, thanks for the details. That's a helpful point of view!

Are there particularly good places to view past sales / square foot, other than doing the research finding houses that have sold in my area, and then doing the math myself?

[somerfriend.livejournal.com]

I think you should do the math yourself. You want to be analyzing each sale to see what degree it really is comparable. Use the internet to look up the sales and information on the sales, but analyze the sales yourself. Remember that is why Zillow is so far off so often, it is a computer trying to do work that requires some judgement that is not always coded into the database it uses.

[frugaljoe.livejournal.com]

Thanks - how far from my house should I be looking for comps? We have a pretty unique home, and even when we bought it, there were only 1 or 2 comps. A quick search in my area doesn't really show any other similar homes, so I'm wondering how far out (neighborhood, city, miles, etc) make sense to search?