Shitty housing market [Rant]

UncleJoseph · Post by **UncleJoseph** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 1:47 am

Ok, I just paid $385 for an appraisal. The theory was to refinance my 2nd mortgage to a better payment/rate, in order to prepare for building/buying a new home within a year. The appraisal came back at only $2,000 higher than my last appraisal 4 years ago. I realize the housing market is in bad shape, but I've done a lot of updates since the last appraisal. A $2,000 equity increase in 4 years, considering the updates, means that my house has probably depreciated significantly.

Countrywide contracted the appraisal, so it's not my[/] appraisal. I read some stuff online suggesting that several mortgage lenders, including Countrywide, have begun low-balling appraisals due to being in trouble with predatory lending in recent past.

Anyone else seen similar results in recent appraisals? Either I've paid $385 for a not-so-accurate appraisal, or my house sucks.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 3:06 am

Low-balling happens. Unless the housing market in your area was way inflated however, then a good bit of recent work should have increased the price more than a couple grand. Either the appraiser was unethical or incompetent.

If the housing market in the area is in a real slump, you might consider putting off refinancing and building your own home until it recovers somewhat.

sinsual · Post by **sinsual** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 2:25 pm

Your appraisal should include a "local market analysis" which compares your property to selling prices/values of other properties in your general area (ours covered this phase of our HOA). It was very easy to see where we could improve the value of our home (swimming pool, adding seperate AC to the garage) and showed what aspects of our lot were hurting us (corner lot, small back yard, no front access for an RV pad to be added to south side of the house). Is there a large number of properties for sale in a 2-3 mile radius? If so, that can also reduce the selling value of your house.

I know it sucks, but, taken at face value, even a lowball appraisal shows you what kind of equity you have available to you. Personally, I would rather have the lowball appraisal, base my economics off of that bid, and then get nicely surprised when things go much better then had planned.