“Challenging Appraisal Values”

I am constantly reading about appraisals that come in below what they should and how it’s almost impossible to get them changed. I have never understood someone saying, an appraiser won’t change a value once the appraisal has been completed. Here is my problem with that thinking. If the information gathered to come up with the value is wrong, there is a good chance the value will come in wrong.

In the last week we challenged 2 appraisals. Both of these appraisals were done for refinance purposes. The first, there was an estimate of $600,000 and the value came in at $540,000. When I sent to appraisal to the client to review, he told me there were numerous mistakes. I asked him to detail all the errors, it was quite a list. We sent in the information challenging the value and got a revised value of $570,000. Much closer than what we started with and enough to accomplish everything we needed to do.

The second appraisal came in at $220,000 and the owner had estimated the value of $236,000. Again I sent a copy of the appraisal to the owner and once again there were some errors. I got a detailed list of what was incorrect and sent all to the lender. The appraisal was correct and the new value was $236,000.

The bottom line, if the appraisal is wrong, it needs to be corrected and there is a good chance the value gets adjusted and corrected. I don’t see any reason not to challenge mistakes when they are made.