What Buyers and Sellers Need to Know About Appraisals: Part 2

We’re here with part two in our series about home appraisals. Today, we’re discussing how home appraisals affect sellers.

Selling your Iredell County home? Get a free home value report

Buying an Iredell County home? Search all homes for sale

We’re here with part two in our series about home appraisals. As we discussed before, an appraisal is an expert’s estimate of the value of a home. How do appraisals affect home sellers? Why would you, as a seller, decide to have an appraisal done on your property before you put it on the market and list it? 

First of all, maybe you aren’t sure what your property is worth and you want to be confident in the value of your home. You want to know what a buyer might be willing to pay for the home in the current market. That way, you can figure out if the numbers make it worth it for you to actually sell. 

If you are in an estate settlement, your real estate attorney will likely recommend that you order an appraisal. That way, you can establish a value for tax reasons and a value the heirs can all agree on and everyone is on the same page when it is time to sell the property. 

Maybe you are selling your home as a ‘For Sale By Owner’ property and you want to know how much to ask for your home. In that case, an appraisal can be very helpful. 

If an appraisal is a year old, it is no longer relevant in today’s market.

However, you should keep in mind that when you sell your home, the buyer is still required to order an appraisal, even if you have already ordered one. The lender will go with the most recent appraisal. 

You should also keep in mind that the appraisal tells you what the property is worth the day the appraiser came out to your home. If you ordered an appraisal a year ago, it won’t apply today.

This is another great reason why you want to work with a professional real estate agent. We constantly monitor the market and can help you price your home based on what is happening in real estate right now. 

The market can change in an instant. If you have any questions about appraisals or your home value, give us a call or send us an email. We would be happy to help you!

What Iredell County Buyers Need to Know About Appraisals

We’re here with part one of our series about home appraisals. Today, we’ll go over why appraisals matter to buyers.

Selling your Iredell County home? Get a free home value report

Buying an Iredell County home? Search all homes for sale

First off, what is an appraisal? An appraisal is an expert estimate of the value of something and, in this case, it’s the value of the home you are buying. Appraisals are required if you are borrowing funds, and optional for cash buyers. Your lender will order the appraisal and you will pay for it up front or at closing. This is a closing cost for the buyer. 

You already set the price of the house when you signed the contract, so why does the bank need a third party appraisal to determine the value of the property? The mortgage company or bank wants to make sure that the purchase price is equal to or higher than the appraised value. 

Why? Lenders use the lower sale price or the current appraisal. They don’t really care what you are willing to pay for a piece of property. If the appraised value is lower than the sales price, you have a problem. However, there are a few solutions. 

First of all, you can ask for a review of the appraisal. You could also go back and renegotiate the sales price with the seller. Finally, you could put down more cash out of pocket to match the appraised value.

Appraisals are required if you are borrowing funds. 

Now, you may not have enough cash on hand to make up the difference. If the appraised value is a lot lower than the sales price, you may be overpaying for the property. 

This is exactly why you need the help of a professional real estate agent to maneuver the ins and outs of your transaction. Stay tuned for part two of our series, where we discuss appraisals from the seller’s perspective. If you have any questions in the meantime, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We would be happy to help you!

Is the Iredell Market Favoring Buyers or Sellers?

Selling your Iredell County home? Get a free home value report

Buying a Iredell County home? Search all homes for sale

I wanted to take a look at the issue of housing inventory and what it means to you as a buyer or seller of a home in Iredell County.

If we've got too much supply - indicated by a lot of houses sitting on the market for sale for a long time - it tells you that we're in a buyer's market, because the longer it sits, the more the value is affected negatively. If houses are selling quickly, it means that there are more buyers out there. Low inventory can lead to multiple offer situations on your home when you sell, and this allows sellers to get the most money possible. Buyers have to hustle!

Buyer and seller markets can even vary by neighborhood.

What we like to see is a normal buyer-seller market, where there is enough inventory out there to get competitive prices for sellers, and there are enough qualified buyers willing to pay market value. You'll find that inventory is fluctuating all the time. We can actually have different parts of the country that vary greatly between a buyer’s market and a seller’s market, and it can also happen within the same county. Even in the Iredell County real estate market you'll find pockets where it is a seller's market and pockets where it is a buyer's market. It can even boil down to neighborhoods.

That's why you need access to this data when you're pricing your home as a seller or considering an offer as a buyer. That's exactly the reason why you need to work with a professional real estate agent.

For help in Iredell County, we'd love to do business with you. Give us a call or reply to this email, and let's talk soon!