The Appraisal

Our lender emailed the appraisal to us so we could see it. I've never looked at one before so I had to google a few of the terms.

Our Sales Comparison Value is $314,000. That is our appraised value. As in, if the house were built, and we were selling it, that's what they think we could get on the market.

Our Cost Value is $329,000. This is the part that confused me. The cost value is what they deem a buyer would have to pay to build our house on a similar lot. Well DUH!!  That's exactly what we are doing!!  If they know it costs more to build how are appraisals ever at the right price?

From what I can see, they didn't give us credit for a finished basement in our square footage. Nor did they include our basement bathroom. It's listed as a 3br, 2.1 bath.  I'm not sure if it's normal to not be included in an appraisal, but one would definely put it on a sales listing when selling the house. They also gave us no credit for our lot. We are being compared to 3 other homes in our area, each sitting on lots half our size and without the wooded view we have.  Only one of which is even remotely similar. I get it. Our house is much bigger and nicer than anything around. But this is our current school district. We don't want to move out of it.

My boyfriend is already annoyed and looking at homes for sale in the area so he can be prepared to walk away.  Susan assures us she has a plan ready for us on Saturday. I feel bad she's working from home on her days off to help solve this. I just want to understand it all. Either the appraiser didn't do his job, or Inverness has to make some changes in their pricing.

The way I see it, if they cut off the premium lot price of 9k, they don't really lose anything. We just let them keep our down payment and its solved. Then I don't have to pick and choose what upgrades I have to lose, or walk away.

Stay tuned for Saturday's meeting.