New home appraisal low during refinancing - please help me

[sputnam]

The 1st assumption is that the purchase appraisal was 'right'. People typically view a previous appraisal as 'better' or 'worse' depending on which appraisal fits their needs better. It's possible that the more recent appraisal better reflects the market value of your property. It's also possible, that the value of the property has declined since April.

If you decide to pursue it, most Lenders have appraisal reconsideration processes in place. Ask your loan officer about it. To have a chance for success, you may be prepared to provide sales data that support your idea of the value and/or be prepared to point out material errors in the appraiser's information or analysis.

 

[Mr Rex]

You bought a new home and tried to refinance one that is no longer new. Take your next new car back to the dealer a few months later and see what the trade in value is.

 

[Meandering]

"New" is always a premium over "used".

As long as lending remains difficult to obtain for many would-be*buyers, it will remain difficult for used homes to appreciate to the price of new homes, as it did during the subprime loans in some places in this country.

Have a local experienced appraiser look at both appraisals and explain them to you.


.

 

[Mark K]

In this area buying a new house is like buying a new car; as soon as you drive it off the lot its worth less than the sales price, or as soon as you move into the home, etc.

Reasons: People pay a premium for the new-home-smell, they pay extra for that exact upgrade/amenity that they want, they pay extra for that special lot, etc. Not all of the cost is reflected in the market on a $ for $ basis, if at all.

For a new home to appraise to the sales price (in this area) the appraiser has to mistakenly use only new home builder contract sales for comps. It is common in this area for a one-year old home to sell for 5-10% less than new construction price of an exact model match.

I'd guess that there are a number of factors, including some of the above, affecting your appraisal. If your first appraisal determined a market value that was the same as the sales or contract price, I'd suspect the first report before the second.

 

[Kim Whiting]

New homes are like new cars.......open the front door and you lose 10%.

 

[Papoua Jose]

• I know a few NEW SIMILAR homes sold at the same time for 400K but those homes were not used for comparison. I am not if that is because the total square feet data of these NEW homes are not available public. Is there any way, I can use those recent sales as comparable? I am not able to see those data on the county website too. Is there any other option to use these recent sales as comparable?

New construction sale prices are influenced by builder incentives/concessions that no longer exist after the initial transfer.

The house is now competing with properties that do not have builder influences and the market is showing it's price preference for "slightly used" vs. brand new and other issues outside the new construction market.

 

[ctapraser]

New homes are like new cars.......open the front door and you lose 10%.

Yah, but if they were really like cars... I could get in my house, drive it into a different neighborhood, then open the door and have a 20% increase in value....just sayin

 

[Deleted member 128537]

In 17 years as an appraiser I have never seen the suggested comps given by a borrower to be be good comps. And that is the case even for realtors.

 

[expensiveduck]

I can't answer your question about why the square footage of certain sales is not available in the public record. I can however tell you how I and many other appraisers determined square footage before public records were made available on the internet.

1) contact the seller
2) check for square footage in sales listings.
3) go to the comparable and measure them

You may also want to check with the building inspector as the blueprints may be on file.

If you know of comparable sales I suggest that you submit them to the lender or appraiser.
It seems that someone may have taken a shortcut and failed to check other sources of property information however it is possible that builders may have inflated the values of recent new construction sales.

I have gone ahead and provided the 3 recently sold properties (around 400K in the same subdivision) to the appraiser, I have received the following FEEDBACK from my current Appraiser…


“There is no record of sale in the past 12 months in GaMLS nor FMLS for any of the provided properties. Additionally, the appraiser was not able to obtain GLA for these properties from any known or available independent source (Realist, GSCCCA, MDC, Redlink, ResLink or Core Logic). These simple is not any independent physical information on any these provided properties or the circumstances around their sale outside of the date and price-extracted from Realist. “

PLEASE HELP ME…. What are the acceptable for of information to a appraiser to consider in this situation ( When the Sq feet data is not available public)
· - Original appraisal copy of the recently sold comparable homes? ( Since the new homes sold recently subdivision are my friend’s, I can easily obtain their appraisal copies and provide it to my appraiser for his consideration. I am not sure if this should an valid document that can be considered. Please let me know.
· - Bonofide certificate from the builder?

I have a solid belief that if these new similar homes square foot data is available public, my home value will definitely be increased 20K more during appraisal. Please let me know what can be done in this situation.

 

[GeorgiaCG]

What part of Georgia are you located in?

Did the original appraisal provide a deed book and page reference for the comparables included?