I recently met an appraiser at a sale I had in SeaGrove, St. Augustine, Florida. He mentioned that he enjoys meeting with different offices to share information in a talk he entitles "Appraisers are not the Enemy." We had him address our office meeting today. This professional was indicating that if there are enough sales in the subdivision, they are not supposed to leave that neighborhood for others. They need 3, of which can be a combination of pending and sold (altho the REALTOR has to be willing to share the price of the pending). If they don't have the number of comps in the neighborhood, they go back in time. They also need to use at least 2 actives and then a variance of list/sale ratio of what they will sell form.
It takes 6-7 hours of work to do an appraisal (sound familiar?). The appraisers are, as of May 1 2009, rotated in a pool of appraisers. This appraiser said that he has spent years building up relationships with lenders, customers, and vendors and now any newbee appraiser can be arbitrarily "assigned" to the job. Appraisers are no longer even able to communicate with lenders.
If the neighborhood has a lot of foreclosures and short sales, they will need to be included. If there are not a lot, they are to eliminate those as well as "flips". The price of an appraisal is about $350 altho that fee increases if the property is on navigable water, over $1 mil, or is a very unique home. He also indicated that about 25% of appraisals are currently being done for sales (this is increase from 5% same time last year). All in all, the cost approach has far less weight than the comparative market value, even though this value is usually less than the comparative market approach.
He requested that REALTORs include in the MLS data sheet what is in the back yard (patio, screened lanai, fence) and also what the view is and include photos. An interesting note is regarding GLA - gross living area is not so much if it has heat or AC, but if it conforms to the rest of the home. For example an added Florida room with aluminum roof unlike the rest of the house but has a wall AC unit would not be considered in the total square footage. Hope this is helpful to someone.
An Marshall, REALTOR
Prudential Network Realty
Extremely Full Service
Ranked #1 for Seller Satisfaction, by JD Power & Associates
www.AnMarshallOnTheMove.com
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email:an.marshall@prudentialnetworkrealty.com
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