Water in Crawlspace

[William Rightsell]

Turned out that the water was caused by a couple of impressive plumbing leaks. Owner fixed it. We sent in an FHA Compliance Inspection Report, because the appraisal had been "as-is," and included the problems. Loan went through.

Jim,

I am a bit curious. AS IS appraisal??...ie...checkbox #1?? How did you estimate the cost to cure and/or make an adjustment to the comps for the deficiency if you were not positive about the source of the problem at the time?? How can you derive the market value of a home with potentially serious problems when you arent fully aware of what those problems are and what the cost to cure will be?

Just curious...

 

[xm39hnu]

Jim,

I am a bit curious. AS IS appraisal??...ie...checkbox #1?? How did you estimate the cost to cure and/or make an adjustment to the comps for the deficiency if you were not positive about the source of the problem at the time?? How can you derive the market value of a home with potentially serious problems when you arent fully aware of what those problems are and what the cost to cure will be?

Just curious...

It was "subject to" and the "livability" box was checked as well. This was an FHA appraisal, and the repairs had to be effected if they wanted the loan. We didn't leave them any wiggle room.

I got about four callbacks on this thing, wanting to know when we'd do the final. The borrower called and asked us to do the compliance inspection. I asked whether the water in the CS had been corrected. She said, "Well, I guess it has." I told her that it was a $100 guess, and that she'd wind up paying for it. If it wasn't corrected, she'd have to pay for yet another inspection. "Well, we better wait then." And we did.

I was just pointing out that you can speculate about the cause of a condition if you simply state that you're guessing, and you won't get your tail in a crack. But one should not pass off an educated guess as an expert opinion, nor should one allow it to be construed to be. In this case, my educated guess was dead wrong. The actual cause was found and corrected.