How to Prepare For Your House Appraisal
Are you wondering how to prepare for a home appraisal? Preparing for an appraisal is a wise move.
If you plan on selling your home or trying to refinance your mortgage, you will need to get your property appraised as part of the process.
Over the past thirty-seven years of selling real estate, many sellers have asked me what they need to do to prepare for their real estate appraisal.
They will specifically ask what the appraiser will be looking at. In other words, what is the appraiser appraising?
Getting an appraisal can be stressful, which is understandable. The value your home is appraised for will be a primary factor in how much money you can get.
A low appraisal can mean a lower selling price—not ideal when you want to make as much money as possible from your sale.
Dealing with an appraisal gap isn’t fun, so appraisal preparation is worthwhile. Anything you can do to enhance your home’s value, the better.
Fortunately, there are things you can do to prepare for an appraisal.
Read on for valuable tips on prepping for the appraisal so you can maximize the value of your home.
What is a Home Appraisal?
An appraisal is an unbiased opinion from a third party that the buyer’s mortgage lender hires. They are completed by licensed professionals in this line of work.
The appraisal will encompass looking over a property in its entirety including the interior, exterior, and surrounding neighborhood.
Completing an appraisal by a real estate appraiser is a significant step in most transactions.
1. Get The Appraisal Done Early.
The information you will get from the appraisal will play a significant role in the planning process for the completion of your sale.
If the appraiser finds a defect with your home, you can address the problem immediately so you are not scrambling at the last minute.
Of course, if you wait until the last minute to get the appraisal done, it will be much more difficult to fix problems before you try to close on the property.
Do yourself a favor and get the appraisal done now so you can make informed decisions.
Ask your real estate agent to keep the mortgage approval date as tight as possible and get the appraisal ordered.
2. Clean Your Home to Prep For The Appraisal.
A clean home will not prevent an appraiser from identifying significant problems with your property. That being said, there is still something to the idea of dressing to impress.
When your home is clean and organized, it gives off the impression that you take care of the property. The appraiser might be less prone to nit-picky observations and maybe a little more motivated to see the best in your home.
An appraiser is human, just like the rest of us. The psychology of selling comes into play with a spotless, well-cared-for home.
One of the ratings on an appraisal report is condition – keep this in mind. You staged your home when it was listed. Doing the same for the appraisal is essential.
Another advantage of cleaning your home thoroughly is that you will see some potential problems that the appraiser would notice.
If you find a damp area in the basement with a bit of mold, you can get the problem fixed and the mold remediated before the appraiser can see it and write about the issue in their report.
3. Clean Up Your Yard Before As Part of The Appraisal Preparation.
The same idea about cleaning your home applies to your yard and landscaping. You do not need a luxurious lawn and heavily landscaped areas to make the house look nice.
But you do need to cut the grass, rake the leaves, and tidy things up if you want to put your best foot forward.
Cleaning up your home exterior will also allow you to see problems that you could fix quickly and cheaply before the appraiser shows up.
Look around with a keen eye for any apparent defects.
Make sure you take care of any obvious problems like rotting trim boards, leaves hanging out of your gutters, an unmaintained deck, and other such issues.
It should be part of your home maintenance checklist if you sell in the spring.
Try to have an open mind and see things like you would be if you were purchasing the home.
4. Make it Easy to Appraise Your Home.
Another excellent tip for preparing for an appraisal is to make it easy on the appraiser! Appraisers are people, and most respond well to being treated with respect and courtesy.
They tend to have full schedules, so making it easy as possible for them to appraise your home is an easy way to get on their good side.
Keep in mind that being on the right side of a professional will not make them neglect job duties—if there are severe issues with the home, being nice will not keep these problems off the report.
Making it easy to appraise your home means cleaning up, removing clutter, ensuring all areas are accessible, like attics and basements, being on time for the appraisal, etc.
5. Remember, Every $500 Matter.
Remember that condition plays a significant role when considering how to prepare for a house appraisal. The $500 example is the idea that appraisers tend to measure a home’s value in increments of $500.
If you have minor repairs that need to be done and leave them for the appraiser to find, they are likely to knock some value off of your home.
Things like broken doors, non-functional locks, faulty light switches, leaky faucets, and other minor issues are cheap enough to repair and will help you avoid lost value and increased scrutiny on the appraiser’s part.
Just think about how quickly each issue can add up when multiplied by $500, and you will find it easy to appreciate the value of making minor repairs now instead of later.
Again, this falls under the condition an appraiser will be grading while visiting the property. Blatantly obvious repairs can affect the value of your home.
6. Make Sure All Major Systems Are Functioning Properly
One of the most vital aspects of appraisal preparation is ensuring all your effective systems are working as intended. The appraiser will verify that your heating and cooling systems work.
They will also check that you have running water and no apparent plumbing leaks. Plan on them finding and looking at your electrical panel.
An appraiser will also look over the structure of your home. While they are not home inspectors, they will look for blatantly obvious defects like structural cracks in your foundation, a leaning chimney, rotting wood, missing shingles, and anything that could be a blatant safety problem.
Part of preparing for a home appraisal should be addressing these things before they can be seen. Just because you are selling your house as-is does not mean it can stop the home from appraising low.
If the buyer has an appraisal contingency or mortgage contingency, the house could be back on the market.
The buyer will get their earnest money back, and you will be at square one.
7. Make Sure Your Real Estate Agent Attends The Appraisal.
The best real estate agents will attend the appraisal to help the appraiser. When selling a home in the Metrowest Massachusetts area, I always try to participate in the appraisal.
The agent needs to bring comparable sales data to support the sales price. The agent can also point out other important things if the appraiser is unaware, such as recent improvements, the quality of the neighborhood, schools, etc.
An excellent real estate agent does more than sell your house – they REPRESENT you at every phase of the sale, including the appraisal. The appraiser will appreciate being helped as well. This is a vital step in getting ready for the appraisal.
8. Make a List of All The Upgrades You Have Done to The Home.
Another vital part of preparing for a real estate appraisal is to let the appraiser know all the money you have spent on your property.
A simple list highlighting all the improvements you have made to your home and the expense of those improvements makes it easier for the appraiser to calculate your property’s value.
While appraisers may be on the lookout for upgrades, they are not always going to notice every improvement you have made, and they are certainly not going to be sure of how much you spent on the upgrades.
The list you make should include the date of your upgrades, and all the building permits you acquired, and any warranties that go along with the work—the more recent the improvement, the better.
For example, if you have remodeled your kitchen in the last couple of years, this is undoubtedly something the appraiser needs to be made aware of.
Not every improvement you make to your house increases its value. Some improvements don’t help or hurt your value.
Here are some of the best home improvements to increase value.
9. Pay Attention to The Area Around Your Home.
Appraisers do their best to research each area they appraise in, but they will not always be thoroughly familiar with where your home is located.
You may have noticed a new shopping center, an upgraded school, increased access to the highway, or other improvements that add to the quality of life in your neighborhood.
Since the appraiser could miss these improvements, it is up to you to ensure that all of them are understood before the appraiser finalizes their report.
As crazy as it sounds, having a Starbucks, Trader Joe’s, or Whole Foods nearby could increase the value of your home.
10. Consider Improving Your Landscaping Before The Appraisal.
While you should be careful about how you spend money on improvements before selling—because not all upgrades yield positive financial returns—some modifications are a more sure bet than others.
Landscaping improvements can often be made for a reasonable price, especially if you do a lot of the work yourself. And those improvements may add noticeable value to your home.
You can do a lot on the weekend, like planting flowers, shrubs, and small trees, replacing dying grass areas with more low-maintenance plants, and adding a layer of mulch to your flower beds to bring everything together.
Even an afternoon of planting and cleaning up can make your home much more appealing to anyone who drives by or walks up to the door.
11. Consult With a Real Estate Agent For Appraisal Prep.
Another tip to prep for an appraisal is to consult with a Realtor.
If you are selling your house as a for sale by owner, you might want to get some tips from a Realtor. The problem with trying to do everything yourself is that you can miss essential things—factors that can make a significant difference in the final value of your home.
Your local agent can provide guidance specific to your home and area that you cannot find anywhere else.
A quick tour of your home with the agent will give you valuable feedback on what aspects need to be addressed before the appraiser walks through the door.
The agent can also help you understand what improvements are likely to yield good returns and which ones should be avoided.
The better information you have, the better you can expect to do with the appraisal.
Tips on Being Ready for A Real Estate Appraisal
Preparing for a real estate appraisal is easy when you know what the appraiser will look for.
Here is a recap of what the appraiser will be appraising:
- The condition of the exterior of your house.
- The condition of the interior of your house.
- The overall square footage of your home.
- Any recent upgrades you may have done to your home.
- Whether your home is modular construction or stick built.
- The neighborhood in which your home is located. This would be known as neighborhood appeal.
- The desirability of the lot your house is located on.
- The school district you are located in.
- Any unusual factors that could affect the property both positively and negatively.
These are all things that will impact the value of your home.
There are also extraneous features of an area that can bring down your property value.
What Can Happen When You Are Not Prepared For an Appraiser
The downside of being unprepared for an appraiser’s visit is that they could look at your property unfavorably.
Why is this a problem? The appraiser is the judge, jury, and executioner when providing the lender with a home value.
You may not like what the appraiser tells the bank about the value of your home. In other words, the house might not appraise for the value you expected – the agreed-upon sale price.
This is the point in time when your stress levels will rise significantly. You will now be either reducing the sale price of your home to what the appraiser says it’s worth or trying to fight it.
Let me be blunt – getting an appraiser to change the value of a home is not easy. Unless the appraiser made a factual mistake, you’d probably be out of luck.
It sounds like you should take this whole appraisal process seriously, right? Hopefully, knowing how to be ready for the appraiser has been helpful.
Final Thoughts on Appraisal Prep
Preparing for an appraisal is just plain smart, considering it is a considerable hurdle to clear in your sale. Taking the time to go the extra mile to make your home look its best for the appraisal will be more than worth it.
Are you planning on selling a house in the Metrowest, Massachusetts area? Don’t hesitate to contact me if you need help selling a home in my local area.
Additional Helpful Resources
- How to be prepared for the home inspection – being prepared for an appraisal is vital, but so is being ready for a house inspection. See what you need to know in the informative article here at Maximum Real Estate Exposure.
- Maintenance tips to keep up with your property – homes that are not well-maintained can get dinged by an appraiser. See the tips by Luke Skar that will help keep your home in top shape.
- Home selling problems to avoid – when you sell your house, it is relatively easy for issues to show their ugly head. See some helpful tips to prevent these problems by Lynn Pineda.
- Why homeownership will build your wealth – see the power of why owning real estate can make you wealthy over time by Karen Highland.
Use these additional resources to make the best decisions possible when buying or selling a house.
About the Author: The above Real Estate information on how to prepare for a real estate appraisal was provided by Bill Gassett, a Nationally recognized leader in his field. Bill can be reached via email at billgassett@remaxexec.com or by phone at 508-625-0191. Bill has helped people move in and out of many Metrowest towns for the last 37+ years.
Are you thinking of selling your home? I am passionate about real estate and love sharing my marketing expertise!
I service Real Estate Sales in the following Metrowest MA towns: Ashland, Bellingham, Douglas, Framingham, Franklin, Grafton, Holliston, Hopkinton, Hopedale, Medway, Mendon, Milford, Millbury, Millville, Natick, Northborough, Northbridge, Shrewsbury, Southborough, Sutton, Wayland, Westborough, Whitinsville, Worcester, Upton, and Uxbridge MA.
