Need CP expertise - Selling a home: Do you get an appraisal before listing your home?

[Lzen]

Or do you go with what your agent recommends?

We have an agent who is very experienced but I'm just not sure what I should do here. She has done a comparison analysis on our home and similar homes that have sold recently in the area. She gave me the three addresses and what they sold for and they were right in line with what she said. Her recommended asking price is about 7-14% less than what I thought it should be. We have done some things to the home to make it perhaps a little more valuable than when the last appraisal was done 5 years ago. Her recommendation was 7% less than that appraisal 5 years ago.

Should I spend the money to have a new appraisal? Keep in mind that what she said was just a recommendation. She did say that we could ask for more. But she said we should be willing to go down on price if it doesn't sell. I do want to get the house sold quickly as we have already contracted to buy a new house on the 25th and I really don't want to have to pay 2 mortgages for very long.

[Marcellus]

Appraisal isn't likely to change what the house actually sells for to be honest. The comparables usually set the homes value, it only needs to appraise enough to cover the loan someone is going to take against it.

My $.02

[Saulbadguy]

Price it to sell and move on.

[ChiefsCountry]

Nope. Buyers will end up getting an appraisal that will determine the true value of the home unless they are paying cash.

[TomBarndtsTwin]

Originally Posted by Marcellus

Appraisal isn't likely to change what the house actually sells for to be honest. The comparables usually set the homes value, it only needs to appraise enough to cover the loan someone is going to take against it.

My $.02

This.

There's a reason appraisals are usually not done till after the inspection has been completed. They don't matter to the sale price. It's only for the loan.

Save yourself the money and have your agent list it for what you think it will sell for. If you don't get a bite, you can always lower it.

[Flying High D]

You don’t have a hair on your ass if you ain’t carrying two mortgages. It’s the American way. Only thing better is three. **** a bunch of debt to income ratio.

[Dayze]

it couldn't hurt; just so you have a general idea, so you can evaluate the offers / how much cash they're putting down etc..

so if, the asking price is 100k (using simple math here), and it appraises at 90k; and you get an offer from someone for 105k who is only putting like 3% down and financing the rest; you know there's a good chance their loan would be more than appraisal and the loan wouldn't go through; by the time this is discovered, you could be 3 weeks into the process and a deal fall through then you've lost time on the market and have to list it again. I think you could keep the earnest money at the point of it falling though, but time lost on the market would be more of a concern to me than $1k in earnest.

if the offer/contract is 'close' in terms of what an appraisers comes up with, my opinion the appraiser just says "yep, it appraises" for exactly the sell price so the loan will go through. obviously, it's there a large gap, the probably don't do that. in our case, our offer was about 3k more than what we thought the house would appraise at, but we got the appraisal back, and it was appraised at exactly our offer. lol.

[ptlyon]

Just throw a match to it like the Chiefs season and move on

[KS Smitty]

Originally Posted by TomBarndtsTwin

This.

There's a reason appraisals are usually not done till after the inspection has been completed. They don't matter to the sale price. It's only for the loan.

Save yourself the money and have your agent list it for what you think it will sell for. If you don't get a bite, you can always lower it.

This is good advice.
We are currently going through this with Moms house that transferred to us kids upon her death.
The comps the realtor gave us were for homes similar to moms that sold and property only (there's 3 acres) that sold. After discussion amongst the 4 of us we decided to list the house and property at a higher price than what the realtor recommended and drop it after 3 weeks if we get no offers. It's prime property in Shawnee but the house will need some work so this gives us some negotiating room but should still allow us to get at least the appraised value.
Good luck Lzen!

[Lzen]

Originally Posted by ptlyon

Just throw a match to it like the Chiefs season and move on

[Kiimo]

Remember that Game of Thrones conversation about where power lies?

That but power is the value of your home. If you want the perceived value go off the assessed value for your taxes.

If you want the real value, it's what the seller will pay. Then they will try to get an appraisal for as high as possible to give them as much equity as they can with their loan.

In short don't waste 500 bucks on an appraisal that won't matter one iota.

[Brooklyn]

lots of buyers in your market, or are you just getting out? best plan is to price it really low and incite a bidding war. you'll get a ton of eyes on it, and eventually the price will rise to where it should. nothing forces you to accept the offer you know is low and below desired ask.

[DJJasonp]

Just went through this process.

Unless you have a long/ongoing relationship with your realtor, and have 150% trust in them - I would highly recommend speaking to a couple other realtors to see what they think they can get for the house.

Realtors will say a number to get you excited.......when in reality, they may not be able to get close to what they quote you.

The market will dictate, but you need some honest feedback from your realtor.

[Lzen]

Okay, I think we will list it for a bit higher than the agent's rec. and lower it if it doesn't get any offers the first 3-4 weeks.

Thanks for the advice, everyone.

And Dayze, I did take your comments into consideration. However, the appraisal 5 years ago tells me that we still won't be asking for more than it should appraise for.
But that got me to wondering about the offere we put in on the new house. They chose ours out of 3 total offers. The appraisal on that was done on Friday. I'm curious to what that value will be. We should see it here in the next day or two, I would think.

[IowaHawkeyeChief]

If you are selling it on your own, I found they are valuable to have. I got an appraisal on a foreclosure after it was finished that I sold. I listed on Zillow. I shared the appraisal with the interested buyers and told them what a real estate commission 7% would be and that I would give them 3% off the appraisal if they bought direct. I ended up selling it this way. The new appraisal for the loan came back $500 higher. It was a win win for both and I sold the house very quickly this way. You can use zillow comps and have the same strategy, however, an appraisal done within 30 days for $395 turned out to be a good investment as it added immediate credibility to the value.