A real DOOZY this week with an appraisal on a short sale I am mitigating..........
In addition to my own short sale listings, I am also a certified/hired short sale mitigator for other agents.
Right now I have 3 short sales that I am mitigating for other agents in my area.
One of them just got an accepted offer, and the other two I have obtained written approval for. Both of those had 2 lenders on them, and one of them I successfully negotiated the HAFA short sale for, and the sellers will be receiving $3000 from the net proceeds at the close of escrow.
Well, on the one that is not the HAFA short sale, the appraisal was done on the property this week.
But here's the twist:
1. The property was appraised $100,000 below the accepted purchase price!
2. There were MULTIPLE offers on this property!
3. And here's the clincher: the appraiser that did the BPO/Appraisal for the mortgage holding bank was the SAME appraiser that was sent out to do the appraisal for the buyer's lender!!
So now at this point, all we can do is draft an amendment to the contract for the new purchase price at $100k below, revise the HUD, and send it in to the bank to see how it flies.
The appraiser is from out of the area, and for this particular neighborhood that the property is located in, you REALLY need to know the area because it has very distinct neighborhoods within the area that vary drastically in value that are located literally within a mile or two of each other.
I know this neighborhood VERY well, and in fact I own a single family investment property in the area, and I can tell you with 100% assurity that this appraisal is beyond wrong. I mean, the fact that the property had multiple offers on it pretty much tells you right there that it was priced right.
The part that bothers me the most about this is that this one appraiser's actions are going to cause HUNDREDS of people some undue hardship that live in the area, and will unjusitifiably bring the value of the homes in the area down when the market has clearly spoken on what the value really is based on the accepted purchase price within a multiple offer situation.
How are we supposed to recover in this market when we have appraisers who are practicing this kind of thing?
