It is called the Sacramento Appraisal Blog, and it is chock full of invaluable info.
I am sharing a portion of one of his excellent blogs with a great tip below (with permission and full attribution of course).
A “cheat sheet” for agents of information to provide to the appraiser
I recently appraised a custom home, and when the order came through the property looked overpriced. I thought, “Yep, I’m going to look like the bad guy when this one appraises too ‘low’”. However, after doing all my research AND asking all the right questions to the listing agent, this property was clearly worth slightly more than the contract price. Ultimately I left the transaction feeling a bit curious why the agent did not offer more information about the property until I asked. At the end of the day her insight was actually vital since I found out there was a back-up cash offer above asking, one other full-priced conventional offer, and another listing coming on the market priced at a similar level – not to mention the feedback on the layout, landscaping, and location. The agent spent so much time, effort, and money to market this listing, but when it came to communicating with the appraiser, her approach was hands-off.
A “cheat sheet” to communicate with appraisers: What if you had a document on your desktop to simply address some of the questions appraisers tend to ask? You could quickly fill it out, and then email it or give it to the appraiser in person. Check out the document below, and you can download in WORD or a PDF.
Ryan also offers some very helpful additional tips, and I highly recommend visiting his blog here to get them all.
Jay Voorhees at (925) 855-4491
Real Estate Broker, CA Bureau of Real Estate, BRE# 01524255, NMLS# 335646
