I have a different view of people that read this crap and take it at face value. Idiots like this are what keep us in business. I did one last week that was an old two-story home built in 1851 that had been remodeled. The people paid $95,000 for it in 2000 and spent about $30,000 remodeling. They applied for an equity credit loan and told the bank that the property was worth $250,000. Half of it was painted pink and they hadn’t finished painting it yet, so the other half was white. They had the yard covered in pink gravel. When I looked at the picture I thought my camera was broken. Even the trees showed up pink. Camera must have been over loaded with pink shades. I used 11 comparables and it was worth about half that. The woman at the bank that I hand the appraisals in to purchased a similar house about ten years ago and completely remodeled it. It was a show place. Made a mockery out the subject property in all aspects. The bank lady sold her’s about two years ago for $165,000, and it took her about a year to do it. I think they had it appraised five times before some idiot hit the number. I was using a lot of regression at the time and every time I did a data sort that house popped up and was clearly completely out of line. I finally just took it out of the data base. It stuck out like a sore thumb. The lady at the bank looked at the appraisal, said the borrower told her it was worth $250,000, and said it was people like this that keep you in business Austin. She is right.
