appraised value

Appraised value verses Market value

by John Rice

Seems no matter what the market is, I’m explaining the difference between Appraised Value and Market Value.

Many people think whatever the appraiser says their house is worth, is what it is worth. The real value is whatever number a seller and a ready, willing and able buyer agree upon. Appraisers study past buyer/seller behavior and give an opinion of current value.

When the market was bad, I was always explaining how appraised value was usually MORE than market value. It was more like the house’s potential. In this crazy seller’s market, I am sometimes explaining how appraised value is LESS than the market value. A lot of the reason is because market value happens in real time. It is right now. Appraised value is saying what the value should be based on the past.

Just this week, a house I sold for $429k appraised for $417k. As I read over the appraisal report, it became clear to me why it did not appraise for the full sale price. Two of the three comparable sales were 6 months old. In an appreciating market, you must make a value adjustment for this. The appraiser gave the two houses 2 and 2.4% appreciation. We have seen much more appreciation in values than that since last October.

In response, I was able to obtain two other offers the listing realtor got. One was $421k and the other was $427,500. If you average those two offers plus the winning offer of $429k made by my buyer, that is an average of $425k.

The appraiser refused to adjust his opinion of value. This is how appraised value and market value differ. Market value is the 3 ready, willing and able buyers who desperately wanted to purchase this home all agreeing the value is between $421k and $429k. Appraised value, in the case of this home, is some stubborn dude with a big ego who isn’t actually in the market to buy anything cutting and pasting a lot of numbers on a sheet of paper and charging $425 for his outdated opinion.

You’re wrong if you think this about appraisals

by John Rice

“But my house appraised for $________.“

“Should I get my house appraised before we list it?“

I hear this a lot. People seem to think that the appraiser determines the value of a property.

They do not.

Buyers and sellers determine the value.

An appraisal can happen for a lot of reasons. Most of the time they are done for a buyer’s lender. Lenders want to make sure the house is worth at least the purchase price since they will be on the hook should the buyer default. Those types of appraisals are more about justifying the sale price. Market value was already determined when the buyer and seller agreed on a price.

Other reasons a house might get appraised are for refinancing, divorces, bankruptcies, home equity lines of credit, etc. On those types, there is not a purchase involved so the appraisal is really just a professional guess at what the market value might be. An appraiser does not determine market value. The appraiser is not buying the house so they are not looking at it the same way a buyer would. They do not care about the color of the walls, if the kitchen is outdated. They just care about if it is in average condition or not. Ever see a listing that said “Priced below recent appraisal!” That tells you that the market did not agree with the appraisers assessment of value.

Last year I sold a house that I had renovated to rent. I was approached by a realtor with a client who wanted it. I decided to sell. We all agreed on a sale price of $205k. Well, the appraisal come back at $186k. The reason is because it was a split level house. An appraiser can only use a split foyer or split level house for sales comparisons on the appraisal report. Of the 40+ recent sales in that neighborhood, there were 4 that were split foyers or split levels, and all were terrible compared to my house. I get it, the appraiser’s hands were tied. Still though, the comps of similar square footage houses in similarly upgraded condition pointed to a value in the lower $200s, which was what I had a ready, willing and able buyer prepared to pay. Bummer.

A little off the subject, but realtors are really better at determining market value. We do pretty much the same thing appraisers do only we know the market a little better than appraisers. I am not at all trying to discredit appraisers here. It’s just we are the ones that go in houses with buyers and know how they will respond to things like barn doors, farmhouse sinks, 80s wall paper, the neighbor who leaves 4 dogs in a kennel all day, and how much natural light a house gets. We have experience with buyers and sellers leading up to signing a contract……still though, when we are called to list a house, it is still a professional guess at market value. Then the appraiser comes in afterwards more as a system of checks and balances to make sure the lender feels good about lending money on the house.

So, now you know that the appraiser doe not determine market value. Market value is like that old saying “Something is worth what somebody is willing to pay for it.” Realtors and appraisers use data to predict what market value should be but we do not decide what market value will be.

I wish my dog was an appraiser

by John Rice

This time of year is always tough for comps…..which is the term we use for recent comparable sales used to determine the value of a house.  Realtors use comps to determine a list price.  Appraisers use them to justify a contract price.  The thought is that the recent past will tell you what the market is doing now, but it really doesn’t work that way in a really good or really bad market when prices are either going up or down.

This reminds me of my old dog Julie.  She was a beagle.  She loved to go out in the yard and sniff around for critters.  I remember one time she was on the trail of a rabbit.  She had her nose to the ground and was on the trail of where that rabbit had been.  What she didn’t know was that the rabbit was right behind her.  That is how appraisals work.  They always know where the market used to be and never where it currently is.

Part of what makes this time of year tough is that the market for the new year is kicking off and we are looking back at late fall and all of the winter to determine value.  Sales are usually down in the winter and most of what sells are the leftovers from last summer.

So, we are looking at the worst times to sell to determine a value during the best time of the market.

I personally have a house that I sold for $200k.  It only appraised for $185k.  The best comps for my house were from 6-12 months ago.  So we have a big gap between what a real buyer with money will pay for a specific house and what an appraiser, whose job is to determine market value, says it is worth.

My current dog Sherpa is a dachshund-Jack Russell mix.  She has no problem keeping up with critters in the backyard.

I wish we had a system of determining value more like Sherpa than Julie.

Did you get a good deal?

by John Rice

You bought the only house in the neighborhood that doesn’t back to green space?  Did you get a good deal?

You bought the only house in the neighborhood that doesn’t look like the others?  Did you get a good deal?

You bought the smallest home, the largest home, the one with the strange floor plan, the only 3 bedroom home in a neighborhood full of 4 bedroom homes, the one with a one car garage when every other house has a two car garage, the one with the really steep driveway, the only one that doesn’t have a flat backyard.

Did you get a good deal because you paid less than what the other houses in the neighborhood are worth?

Odds are you didn’t.

One of the toughest things to explain to buyers is the difference between actually getting a good deal and the perception of getting a good deal.  Often the odd ball house will appraise for more than it is worth because appraised value is different than market value.  Market value is what YOU or any buyer will pay for it.  Appraised value is what somebody who isn’t going to buy it thinks it is worth based on a formula of assigned values.

It is easy to think you got a good deal because your sale price was lower than the rest of the neighborhood, but value is so much more than price per square foot.  You often don’t discover you did not get a good deal until many years later when you want to sell.  It is only then when you can judge if you really bought it right.

When I buy a house, or am evaluating one for a client, I first determine what is the norm for the neighborhood.  You want a house to fit in.  You don’t want anything drastically different unless it is something like having more bathrooms than the norm, more garage space than the norm, a bigger or better lot than the norm.  Those are good differences because they are better than the norm.

While I am on this subject, I’ll add that having one big positive does not make up for one big negative.  If you have the biggest, nicest lot in the neighborhood but also have the steepest driveway, most buyer’s walk away thinking “If only the house didn’t have that steep driveway, it would be perfect!”

So when you are out house hunting, look around.  Learn the neighborhood.  Find out what the typical house is like.  Then compare it to the one you are interested in buying.   Or, make it easy on yourself and call somebody who knows that stuff already.

But it appraised for….

by John Rice

I sold a house a few days ago.  The listing agent told me that it appraised for $25k more than the list price.

Which begs the question:  Why didn’t it sell for that?

Because there is a big difference between market value and appraised value.

Market value is what the house is worth to a buyer.  Appraised value is a way to spend $375 and still not really know the market value.  The main purpose of an appraisal is to justify the purchase price to a lender.

Lots of things affect market value, such as floor plan, decor, features, view, lot size, odors, etc.

An appraiser doesn’t care about any of that.  I mean, they aren’t buying the place so it is all about comparing data to them.  Square footage, condition and what has sold in the area recently are what drives appraised value.  Appraised value is often more about the area the house is in than it is about the subject house.  I’ll also mention that in an appreciating market, appraisals are often incorrect because the data they use is recent history.  In other words, the current appraised value is based on the past.  Market value is always in real time.

Which leads me to this house that I sold.

The area around the house has homes that are 20 years old to brand new.  Values are all over the place.  The brand new houses that are the same size as the one I sold go for $50-75k more than what my client paid.  The same size house in the nicest section of the area is a lot more too.  By comparing my client’s new house to the more expensive and brand new houses, I can see how the appraisal was more than $25k higher than the actual sale price.

How did I help my client determine what the house was worth?  I excluded the more expensive houses up the road.  I excluded the brand new homes since that is a unique sale-they are only new once.  I looked at similar sized houses. I looked at the finishes of each house.  Did they have hardwood?  What were the appliances like?  What was the backyard like?  I looked at all the pictures of every comparable recent sale.  Then I thought about it.  I made adjustments for size and condition just like an appraiser, but I also thought about it through the eyes of a buyer.  I then told her what I thought the house was worth and she made an offer.