Getting house ready for appraisal

You need a loan. You get on line and find a mortgage broker or a bank. Presto, you’ve found a loan officer that will work with you. The interest rate looks good. Your credit looks good. The loan officer tells you what your interest rate is and the terms of the agreement, so you proceed with the loan. This is where is begins to get ugly.

The bank hires the appraiser. The purpose of the appraisal is to determine market value and to allow the bank to determine if you qualify for the loan. Regardless of what the home value is you will be charged a minimum fee of $300. You may also be charged other banking fees.

The appraisal is complete. Your loan officer calls you today and tells you that the interest rate has now changed and the terms of the agreement have changed. What used to be a good loan is now a bad loan that will not work for you. Now you are out the cost of the banking fees and the cost of the appraisal and the terms of the deal still doesn’t work.

Now what?

Now that you’ve spent all of this money, the loan offers gives you a choice. He says, “You can drop the entire deal and lose all of the money that you’ve paid out or you can proceed with the loan under the new interest rate and the new terms of the agreement.” You don’t want to lose all of your money that you’ve put into this, do you?”

If you do not own a significant amount of your home or you are planning to take out a large chunk of money, you will most likely need an appraisal. First, order your own desktop appraisal so that you have a good idea of the value of your home. This is significantly cheaper than the banking appraisal. Later, the bank will have to order another appraisal, but this one will be much more than what the bank orders. Next shop around for interests rated and terms of the agreement based on the home value taken from the recent desktop appraisal. Since you have a good indication of your home value, you can search for terms and interests rates without being talked into signing papers and/or agreements to terms that are a direct result of your homes value.

Before the appraiser comes to your home, pretend that you will be selling your home. This means that you do not need any minor or major repairs. Scrape and paint any peeling siding. Scrape and paint the exterior deck, the garage and even the dog house. Fix any broken windows. Make sure you get any flooring repaired. Paint any walls that need painted. Fix the roof and make sure that all of your sinks, faucets, and toilets are in good working order. Any major repairs will usually post-pone the loan and cost you money.

If there is something strange about your home, tell the loan officer or the bank. Some banks will not loan on strange or unique properties, but some banks will. If you explain to the loan officer what your home is, this will avoid costly appraisals and the like that will most likely stop your loan. If you fix everything before the appraisal, you will not have buy points to keep your loan from expiring.