If you’ve been looking to have your home appraised, you need to understand the most common home appraisal mistakes. Understanding the common mistakes made with a home appraisal and how to avoid them will ensure that your home’s value is appraised properly.
That’s why today, we’ve produced this complete guide to help you get a better knowledge of the most common home appraisal mistakes. Plus, we’ll also break down how you can avoid these mistakes. Keep reading for more information!
What Is the Importance of a Home Appraisal?
A home appraisal is critical because it’ll ensure that a mortgage lender doesn’t approve a loan for a home buyer that’s worth more than the actual property. A home appraisal will protect a buyer from paying more for the property than it’s actually worth.
Home appraisals are also important for homeowners. This is because it will help you to refinance your mortgage, find a home equity line of credit, or obtain a home equity loan.
What Are the Most Common Home Appraisal Mistakes?
If you’re looking to get a home appraisal completed to own your home soon, it’s important that you make yourself aware of the most common home appraisal mistakes. This will ensure that your home is appraised for the value that it is actually worth.
Not Being Home During Appraisal
When is the home appraisal has been completed, it’s important that you’re present during the appraisal process. This will ensure that you’re able to provide any assistance that the appraiser needs to evaluate your home properly. For example, the home appraiser may need to ask you a few questions about the property that will help them better decide your property’s total value.
Making the home appraiser’s value as easy as you possibly can make it easier for the appraiser to provide your home with a fair assessment.
Not Giving Enough Info About Home Improvements
While home appraisers do have to go through extensive training to become certified, that doesn’t mean that they won’t make mistakes. There are many times that home appraisers may miss improvements that you’ve made to the property. Ensure that your home during the appraisal process will ensure that you can point out any home improvements you’ve made.
Following Too Closely to the Appraiser
Another common mistake that homeowners make during the appraisal process is following too closely along with the appraiser. While you do want to make the appraiser’s job a lot easier, you don’t want to bother them too much. These constant distractions can make it difficult for them to appraise your home accurately.
You will also want to make sure that if you have any pets, you keep your pets away from the appraiser. This is another common distraction that homeowners often forget about.
Not Looking at the Appraisal Report
Once the appraiser has a finalized the report, you need to double-check the document. This document that the home appraiser submits to you will also be the same document that a lender will be looking at. Go over all of the details that have been included in the report to make sure that everything is entirely accurate.
If you’re finding that your appraisal’s value is surprisingly low, it could be a warning sign that there’s something inaccurate on the report. Ensuring that you get a copy of the appraisal report can help you better identify what has gone wrong in the report to result in you receiving a low appraisal value.
Not Double-Checking for Mistakes
Once the home appraiser is finished looking over your homework, it’s important for you to assess their report. This will ensure that you can quickly correct any mistakes with the appraiser. Make sure that you thoroughly go over the appraisal report because the home appraiser could have made more than one mistake.
Talk over with the home appraiser to make sure that these mistakes are corrected as soon as possible.
Not Making Sure Your Appraiser Is Familiar with Your Area
The most common mistakes the home appraisers will make are appraising a home in an area that they’re unfamiliar with. Home appraisers can work in a large variety of areas. This means that they could be unfamiliar with the area that your home is specifically located in.
If you find out that your home appraisal agent isn’t familiar with your home’s area, you could file an appeal for your home appraisal value.
Not Getting a Second Opinion
If you’re still shocked by how low your home appraisal value is, you may want to invest your money into getting a second opinion. Be careful because a lender may not always be willing to accept a new appraisal value from A lender that they aren’t familiar with. This is why you should take the time to discuss available options for a new appraisal agent before you invest your money.
The Importance of Your Home Appraisal Value
You only have a little bit of control over the entirety of the home appraisal process. However, there are many ways that you can intervene to ensure that your home is properly valued for what it’s worth. Using the above-listed information and avoiding these most common mistakes will ensure that a home appraisal process goes smoothly for you.
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