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Here in Kitsap County, Washington, we are fortunate to have a very large military community. With the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and the Bangor Submarine Base, our area is home to many active-duty families and retired veterans. As a professional realtor, I have had the good fortune and joy of working with many of these hard-working, dedicated patriots and their families (check out my profile for recent testimonials).
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95 Comments on VA Appraisals: "The Luck of the Draw"
Mia: This is one of the parts of the VA appraisal process that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Many times, VA appraisers will call out conditions like chipped painting, and require that the home be painted prior to closing. Nevermind that it's Winter and it's raining, and any meaningful painting is impossible to accomplish. Nevermind that both parties are willing to enter into a contract to ensure that the painting will be done in the future. Unfortunately, this is one of the areas where the VA appraisal process lacks common sense and flexibility. However, you should not be charged the $100 per day fee, since you are not at fault for failure to close. My recommendation would be to change to FHA or Conventional financing, or delay your purchase until Spring.
Mia: This is one of the parts of the VA appraisal process that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Many times, VA appraisers will call out conditions like chipped painting, and require that the home be painted prior to closing. Nevermind that it's Winter and it's raining, and any meaningful painting is impossible to accomplish. Nevermind that both parties are willing to enter into a contract to ensure that the painting will be done in the future. Unfortunately, this is one of the areas where the VA appraisal process lacks common sense and flexibility. However, you should not be charged the $100 per day fee, since you are not at fault for failure to close. My recommendation would be to change to FHA or Conventional financing, or delay your purchase until Spring.
We just had a heartbreaking experience. We accepted a change to a VA loan from our buyer (originally he said he was going conventional)
He is an ideal borrower, excellent five figure income for 20 plus years, great guy, with superb credit, so we went with it. Our place is a 23 acre farm with a fabulous custom built (we are builders) home of cypress, native tennessee limestone REAL fireplace, good square footage all the bells and whistles, top of the line everything including a home generator, it has stunning views, close to great little city, horse barn, hay sheds, the works...and only 4 years old.The agreed upon sales price was $365,000. the appraisor came out from an area 1 hour away with little knowlege of our rural community. He comped us against brick cookie cutters on 5, 7 and 10 acre 'lots'..He valued our property at $300,000! 18% BELOW the contract. The buyer ran...I am sick about this and furious that one little man with no brains could ruin 4 families lives (we had put an offer to purchase another place and THEY had done the same).....what to do??? the lender has said there 'is no recourse' and the lender never advised the buyer of the pitfalls.
Hi,
I found this discussion very informative and somewhat disheartening.I've had some friends that had to deal with somewhat low VA appraisals in the areas they wanted to by. I'm retired Army and my wife and I just entered a contract on a 2004 home 2 weeks ago. I have to say that I was pretty anxious on how our appraisal would turn out. N.O.V. was issued Yesterday for $7,500.00 over our offer. I felt like I won the lottery.
Abilene,KS area
What about short sale "as is" fixer uppers? There is a house we are bidding on. 5 acres, 2 story 2,800 sq feet 4 bedrooms that is estimated on zillow for $280,000 and on it's own tax roll just value at $190,000. This home is listed at $153,000. We jumped on putting in a contract. What worries me is: the owner took out some windows to put in window a/c units. the only thing that works right now is the inside units and emergency heat strips. (and fireplace). some holes in some walls, and pool left untreated for a year. (of course also cosmetic stuff like bad carpets, paint) but the equity we will have in this home after a couple months of repairs is huge. I am worried about the va appraisal now. What do you think? I am in Florida. Thanks
Can an VA appraiser in Tennessee require a real estate agent to give them a copy of the home inspection?
There is one myth about VA Appraisers that I am very shocked that none of you, that claim to be 'real estate professionals' seem to know or understand.
There is no such thing as a 'VA Appraiser'.
Yes, you read that correctly.
A VA Appraiser is a STATE LICENSED APPRAISER that is trained and licensed to do ANY type of residential appraisal. They have CHOSEN to become ADDITIONALLY licensed in order to do VA Appraisals. I can assure you, that is not an easy process for the appraiser to go through. So, those of you that are trashing "VA Appraisers" probalby have no idea that many of your appraisals have been done by "VA Appraisers" and you may be totally 100% unaware that they were able to do conventional and gov't appraisals.
They cannot appraise the property or stipulate conditions that are not part of the appraisal. So this crap about "chipped paint"...all paint will eventually chip. That is cosmetic. There is nothing in the guidelines that says a property has to be painted AT ALL. That is an urban myth and if a Realtor isn't smart enough to challenge a VA Appraisal (Like I have successfully, MANY times over), then it's time you took some voluntary appraisal courses (like I have) and understand more about the appraisal process.
Karen:
Thank you for coming to my blog and voicing your opinions. Obviously you're an appraiser. We all realize that 'appraisers' are not strictly VA appraisers, that most do appraisals for conventional financing, etc.. No need to get your panties up in a bunch. Sounds like you are equally clueless about the challenges that we real estate folks have to face, the the clearly subjective 'crap' our clients have to deal with. Yes, appraisers for VA lenders call out cosmetic conditions all the time. Even chipped paint, and demand that such things be corrected prior to closing. Which makes absolutely no sense when it's pouring rain outside for months at a time. And challenge a VA appraisal? You make it sound so very easy, when in fact it's not. It's nearly impossible to challenge anything that appraisers spell out, whether it's valuations or conditions. Read through all the comments on this blog, Karen...read the horror stories of clients who have had their dreams torn apart because of issues regarding the VA appraisal process....
Well, we decided to bid on a different home and amazingly the appraisal came in great. My question is, we are having problems with a "road agreement". The home is on 10 acres, semi rural, and two dirt roads off of the county maintained road. It is a very nice dirt road. Two lanes and big and in very good condition. It is maintained by a neighbor who grates it and takes very good care of it. There was no "road agreement" in place, these neighbors and had a verbal agreement for years, 20 years or more and are happy. The seller's realtor went door to door to get signatures and one lone person called all of the other neighbors and told them not to sign because they would end up "paying lots of money" and now we are having problems getting signatures. I can't believe we may lose a chance at our dream home because of something so rediculus as this. Is there a way to get around this? I heard FHA doesn't even require a road agreement anymore. Help!!
Stephanie Anne: Unfortunately, that's a stickler for VA. They require road maintenance agreements. It's nice that your agent went door to door and tried to get everyone's signature. Sounds like someone just needs to convince everyone that a road maintenance agreement is a good thing. Rather than having just one person responsible for grating and care, it should fall on everyone who uses the road. Just make sure the agreement spells out everyone's contribution, very specifically, so people don't feel they're being taken advantage of, or are being charged more money that what is needed to maintain the road. Put a ceiling limit on what everyone has to pay in each year. That should make everyone happy. Let me know how things go...hang in there!
Rich, Thank you for your quick response. So we are working closely with the underwriters and we came up with a simple form that says the neighbors will agree to pay the man currently doing the maintence $100 per year to maintain the road. We are only talking about maybe 7 houses as it is very rural. There are 2 roads heading out to the county maintained road. We got everyone to sign who live on our road, however on the other road we have no signatures yet. These people don't take care of their own road at all, they just like that this other man does it for them. The underwriter is telling us we don't need ALL signatures from that second road. Just one or two from that road will do. There are more appointments with some of them tomorrow. Please tell me what you think. These are in-house VA underwriters.
thanks
Why would you leave a comment like that? And why does this site allow it? Low class.
Stephanie Anne: Forgive the rudeness of 'Bob'....unfortunately, the site is very large and it's hard to police every comment made. I have deleted 'Bobs' comment....
How are things going with that Road Maintenance Agreement? Was your agent able to get the few required signatures? I certainly hope so...sad that VA insists on such things and ends up destroying otherwise worthy transactions....
Rich
Rich,
Thank you for deleting that comment. Everything is going well. We got all 14 signatures saying that they all agree to pay $100 per year to the one of them who has been and will continue to do the road maintenance. The underwriters approved the wording and now it is waiting for the title company for recording. Things are looking up!
Thanks for asking,
Stephanie
Stephanie Anne:
Well, that's awesome!....nice to see some good happen for a change. Please extend my thanks to your agent for doing all that work....I will say a prayer tonight that all goes smoothly from here on out, and you will realize your new home soon!...
Rich
Thanks to all who have posted. This has ben an informative blog. I am currently house hunting and have felt the reluctance of lenders and realtors to use VA loans. I am a first time homebuyer so I am learning the buying process as I go(You can't learn everything online). I have made an offer on a home I think should have no problems with VA appraisal structurally. I am concerned about finding comps in my area as it is mostly rural. I found out from my realtor that the sellers want to add a restriction against using VA financing in the contract due to thier concerns over many failed deals in the area. Can they do this?
we are waiting for a property to be put on the market, it is a HUD home in very good condition. Our concern is all appli. ances are gone even kitchen sink, all light fixtures. This is a really nice home and we reall y want it. IF WE GET THE BID HOW CA WE GET HUD TO ALLOW US TO PUT SINK IN, STOVE AND DISHWASHER IF REQUIRED
WV nate:
The Seller can do just about anything they want to as far as limiting their property to various forms of financing. It can limit the pool of potential buyers, but depending on the area and condition of the home, they may not want to risk a VA purchase, however slight that risk may or may not be. I would ask them to provide some documentation about the supposed 'failed' deals. So many times it's simply heresay and not anything truly concrete.
Paula:
It's a crap shoot. One appraiser may not express concern for missing appliances, another may call them out as conditions for funding. Is the house being marketed as available for VA financing? If so, then HUD will need to allow you to correct these issues prior to closing or the deal can't be funded by VA.
WORST EXPERIENCE EVER! We were supposed to close on new construction thru the VA loan process. We notified the VA Appraiser 60 days in advance that the house was ready for her to inspect. 3 days before closing, the VA Appraiser decides to tell the bank (only after they had called her 11 times with no answer from appaiser) that she hasn't had a chance to get to it yet because she has been under the weather. (for that long?????? geeze) Now we are STILL waiting on her appraisal which she has already promised 2 other times only to lie and never send it. We are about to be homeless because she still hasn't submitted the appraisal and refuses to re-assign the case. Can the bank re-assign the case and how much longer will that delay the process. We dont have another 3 weeks to wait as our current home is being re-leased to new tenants in 1 week. Is there a complaint process for this type of abuse of power?