Unique Historic Home Appraisal for Refinance

[grossmont art colony]

The larger the lender you go to for this type of property, the more trouble you are going to have. They want the loan to fit neatly into their underwriting guidelines so they can package it easily to sell to the secondary market. A complex appraisal with no comparables that does not neatly comply with their guidelines kicks the loan out of the package. The appraisers that were approached about it know this and know an underwriter with the giant lender mentality is going to make them insane with all the stipulations they give the appraiser to try and make the appraisal fit the guidelines. You have to find a lender who understands the uniqueness of the property and that the appraisal is not going to fit neatly into the guidelines. Preferably a portfolio lender but they do not have to be. Good luck.

The situation you describe is exactly what my mortgage broker explained as the situation with this particular lender. I will talk with his this week to find out if all of the lenders he works with will be similarly repackaging the loan. If so, then I will definitely look elsewhere.

 

[grossmont art colony]

Did any of the appraisers actually DO an appraisal? I'll bet they all turned it down due to an extremely low fee for an extremely complex property. I highly doubt that 5 different appraisers ALL stated that they 'couldn't assign a value' to the property; it sounds made-up to me. Any property can be valued, given sufficient time and a sufficient fee to make it worth the headache.

At least three of the five came out to the property. I'm not sure about the other two. I do not know how much effort any of them put into it after visiting the property. I think they were going to be paid $475 for the appraisal. I don't know if that is an extremely low fee or not.

 

[Delta85]

At least three of the five came out to the property. I'm not sure about the other two. I do not know how much effort any of them put into it after visiting the property. I think they were going to be paid $475 for the appraisal. I don't know if that is an extremely low fee or not.

Could be you were going to be charged $475 and the appraiser was gonna end up with much less once the third party took their undeserved cut. That's the way things work now.

If three appraisers actually came out to the property I'll bet each of them immediately called the third party, explained this was going to be a complex assignment, and requested a fee increase. Either the fee increase was denied or the increase approved was not good enough so those appraisers bailed on the job.

I get these from time to time. I recently had a request to appraise a newer home located on direct waterfront with over 6,000 sq. ft. of living area. For this particular town this was gonna be a real hassle to appraise. Probably involving several surrounding towns, a ton of travel, tons of research, and lots of adjustments. I told the third party I did not want to move forward for less than $1,000. They said they could not approve that and I politely stepped out of the process.

 

[Scott R Marshall]

There are multiple things to consider here. As for the 5 appraisers saying none could appraise your home, my initial thought was "says your lender".

It is possible that your lenders "guidelines" were so strict that none of the 5 appraisers could fit your round peg home into the lenders square hole. What I mean by that is your lender may have required the appraiser to include a sale within 1 mile of your home which had occured within the last 90 days in identical condition to your home and within 200 square feet of your gross living area. Based on those "requirements" or a myriad of other permutations, all 5 appraisers may very well have said "We can't do it" to which your lender now attributes as the appraisers not being able to appraise it.

It could have been all 5 appraisers are either not competent in your local market or not competent to appraise your type of home.

It could be the appraisal management company hired by your lender to "facilitate" the appraisal process works on the fast and cheap method and none of the 5 appraisers wanted to deal with the headache of losing a client because they wanted a higher fee to complete the assignment or an extended amount of time to complete said assignment, especially when they could probably churn out a few appraisals in the time necessary to complete yours.

Maybe all 5 appraisers did not want to take on any future liability in appraising your difficult home when there are mutitudes of others where that liability is substantially less, whether real or perceived.

Your opinion that the appraisers are lazy is somewhat faulty, as I'm sure if you agreed to pay a higher fee and your lender was willing to extend the amount of time necessary to complete the assignment, an appraiser could be found, although this additional fee and time does not necessarily correlate to a competent appraiser. Maybe the data is so limited and your market area is so unique that the vast majority of appraisers would avoid such assignments but for an adequate fee and time provided, any appraisal can be completed.

These are just a handful of reasons, there are many more. My suggestion to you is if you want the home financed, find a local lender that knows the difficultities associated with your market, attempt to determine if the appraiser hired has appraised within your specific market, prepare to pay whatever to get the appraisal done and understand that even after all of this, it may just not be possible to find financing as your home does not fit into that nice little lender box.

 

[jakeboeger]

I think it's more of a fee issue. Most borrowers are paying between $400-$500 for an appraisal on the most basic properties.

If I was qualified to appraise a property such as yours, I don't think I would accept a fee of less than $750.

 

[NorthTexValuation]

The situation you describe is exactly what my mortgage broker explained as the situation with this particular lender. I will talk with his this week to find out if all of the lenders he works with will be similarly repackaging the loan. If so, then I will definitely look elsewhere.

At least five appraisers here have advised you to get rid of said mortgage broker.

He is getting a cut of the action just for "shopping" your loan to a bunch of large national lenders who probably use an AMC (another middle man) for the appraisal that usually select the appraiser with the lowest fee, not the most qualified appraiser.

You need a small local lender that knows the best appraisers in your market and is willing to pay a customary and reasonable fee for this complex appraisal.

 

[Smokey Bear]

Do you have a copy of the prior appraisal? Why are they not sending out that appraiser, who obviously found a way to appraise the property?

 

[Ca Ar Independent]

Do you have a copy of the prior appraisal? Why are they not sending out that appraiser, who obviously found a way to appraise the property?

He/she doesn't most likely work for that AMC and his/her fee will be more than $240!!!

 

[fractal7221]

You need to get very "local" with a lender, preferably one that is located close to your neighborhood that really understands your market. Small local bank or credit union is your best shot here. Get past the "loan officer" and speak with the branch manager.

Talk with some Realtor friends and see if they know any good local appraisers that specialize in your type of property in your neighorhood. If so, provide the appraisers names to your lender.

You are not allowed to select an appraiser, but you are not prohibited from "passing along a name" of one or more appraisers to the lender. Then its their choice whether to use them or not.

This can be done, but everything needs to stay as local as possible in order to get a credible and accurate appraisal on your home.

Good luck.

You want to avoid the big box banks as they will turn this down. You have to be picky with local lenders too though, make sure the service their own loans. If they correspondent lend to the larger banks you're back to square one (though most of the larger banks are getting out of correspondent lending). Also have to be careful with the small banks as they may do contract underwriting if they do not have enough volume to employee a full time underwriter.

Also, there's typically little reason to involve a branch manager unless they have been there forever. They usually don't even train them on conventional mortgage products other than how to make the referral to the loan officer. Usually when we get emails and calls from branch managers we get suspicious that something is wrong with the loan.

 

[NorthTexValuation]

Also, there's typically little reason to involve a branch manager unless they have been there forever. They usually don't even train them on conventional mortgage products other than how to make the referral to the loan officer.

A bank branch manager with less lending experience than some loan officer?

Wow...