What is a Tidewater Appraisal?

Vic,
How successful have you been with the appraisal reviews where you had good comps?

The Tidewater Initiative is not a good thing for the vet and is also a violation of USPAP. Typically only the seller's agent provides additional comps and most of the time the comparables are not comparable to the subject property. How do you Realtors and Loan Officers sleep at night manipulating vets to think this is a good program for them.

As I have published before, there is no independence in the residential mortgage appraisal business. Residential appraisals are loan procurement not risk management. Call it what is and quite trying to say they are USPAP.

Actually I believe in certain circumstances this may be the appropriate approach to reach a true value of unique properties in the market place. It remains to be seen if it works in my case where I have a property with main house pool lania with bar and fireplace detached guest cottage, 2 Car attached garage 50 ft common brick breezeway and 3 car detached garage with huge work shop and block pump station / storage house al gated in just under 2 acres. The nearest comparables are 7 to 9 miles away. And even those comps don't have all of this and sold for more than contract price. Fingers crossed on this one>

So of the comps lower the price then the vet needs to ponie up more for closing costs after they are already hip deep in the sale if the seller doesn't want to come down or can't if they owe money on the property. No this is not beneficial to me at all coming in after so much money is already spent.

Do you know where I can find that specific information. I need to be able to site it for my lender.

It isn't that the appraiser thinks he is wrong, it is a VA requirement to invoke Tidewater if appraiser isn't going to come in at contract amount.

I found out the hard way also what it was. Luckily there had been a few sales since the listing that supported the value.

Great info.

It may be forbidden to ask the veteran to bring the money in, but the seller does not have to sell if it does not appraise either!

The only problem with the whole system is that the system of who gets chosen to do an appraisal is supposed to be a random one. They have a list and it rotates to different appraisers. When you get someone from out of the market to do an appraisal, they usually don't know what has sold, and that is a mess!

In working for a builder, we are in the middle of an awkward situation. It is harder and harder to find tradespeople. So, obviously every trade is in demand, and therefore costs more. We are building homes where let's say the price is $399,000. The cost of land, permits, and the actual building, our own financing runs about $370,000. Truly. Now the appraisal comes in at $389,900. If we accepted that, the builder, who has now employed upwards of 50 people in assorted trades, himself, and his bookkeeper and landlord, has $19,900 before taxes for 4 months worth of work. People often think builders make a lot of money. Some situations work out that way, but most don't. Oh, and out of that $19,900 is what pays the office staff and himself and the office rent. The trades people, the government, the realtor, everyone else has been paid.

Buyers can pay more than what the house appraisers for. It is not a requirement that the seller reduce the price.

What happens if the appraiser refuses to budge on the appraised value and the seller (in this case a new builder) has agreed to drop the sales price but still refuses to budge ?

I just today received an email from a VA lender telling me our listing was coming in Tidewater and to provide comps. I have to say I am happy they are doing this as the community I sell in is very model specific and the home had a sale price of 215k. I was able to give them 4 comps that closed in the last 6 months of the same exact floor plan, in this same community that closed in a range of 229k-239k. I have a feeling the appraiser is from out of the area and this seems to be happening more often. The comps definitely support the selling price as it is way under the previous sales. Hoping this appraiser can see form the comps that they are very comparable.

Hi I'm the seller and days before closing , I get an email from my agent that tidewater has been invoked ? You can imagine the panic thiscaused for us & the buyer .Did the appraiser do this ? Who has the authority to invoke this ?

We too are sellers whose home has been hit by Tide Water. We had multiple full price offers in just two days on the market. We chose the buyer who was a veteran, and are now wondering if that was a bad move. It's one thing to look out for our vets, it's another thing to appraise homes under the value that the market is demanding. If our submitted comps don't get the appraised value to where it needs to be, this initiative will have just cost a veteran an opportunity to buy a completely remodeled home.