We are having our house appraised. The appraiser will be looking at both the interior and exterior of our house. For a variety of reasons, we would like the appraisal to be as high as possible.
We a day to prepare. Most of that time will be spent cleaning and straightening up, as our house is in a particularly messy state. But we are unsure of what areas to concentrate on, and if there are any small jobs we could do that might make a difference.
We know what to do if we wanted to prepare the house to sell it, but I assume a professional appraiser is looking at different thing. For example, I doubt the appraiser cares if the closets look cluttered–just how big the closets are. Is that so? Also does the appraiser really care if one of our rooms is sort of a junk repository, or would we be wise to get that straighened up?
Thanks in advance for your help. I’ll answer any questions as they come up.
You don’t state the purpose, but I’ll assume it’s for loan value. If that’s correct there’s not much you can do in a day. It is what it is. The appraiser is going to be looking at basics. Square footage, age of the structure, general condition, size of lot, neighborhood and value of other homes in the area. Asthetics don’t mean as much for loan value as they do if your selling. Of course it can’t hurt to make a good impression, but I don’t think it will affect the outcome of the appraisal.
Appraisers are not supposed to factor in how messy (short of being squalor or uninhabitable), clean, prettily decorated, stylish, etc., a house is. They are supposed to look at structure and permanent fixtures. If you have any cracks or holes in the drywall, get them fixed. If you have an unworking shower so you store junk in the tub, get it out. If you’re replacing a faucet and haven’t finished yet, finish it.
Now, although they are supposed to strictly look at number of rooms, size, # of bathrooms, basement finished or not, etc., I can’t help but believe that they will perceive a clean neat house as higher in value than a dump. If there are no actual structural flaws to correct, it can’t hurt to make the place neat. But remember, the appraiser will probably be in there for 10 minutes. He’s really look only looking for the stuff that affects the baseline value of the house, so don’t kill yourself over making it pristine.
Clean, clean, and clean some more. Don’t forget the yard and garden. Then check the lighting. Clean, light, and airy = more value. Finish all those painting jobs - I still haven’t done my skirting boards. If it’s not too big a job, replace all the light switches with good-looking ones.
Seriously, it doesn’t matter a bit so save your effort for when potential buyers are looking at the house. Appraisers totally do NOT care at all about all that crap, and are really sick of having to listen to homeowners wibble on about how they chose the color for the walls to enhance the feng shui or about how much the above ground pool adds to the home–it does not matter, it makes zero difference, appraisers only care about the physical condition of the house, the age, square footage, condition of the infrastructure, age of roof, cost per sf of construction, etc. The appraiser only needs to be there for about a half hour, tops, and doesn’t need, want, appreciate, or care about you or your opinion of your house. Stay out of the way, let her get the job done and get out. The only real help you can give is to hold the end of the tape measure if the appraiser doesn’t have an assistant. Anything else is not helpful.
I don’t mean to sound harsh, but there’s a common misperception of what appraisers do, and your OP illustrated it perfectly.
We are not selling the house. As A.R. Cane surmised, the appraisal is for loan valuation only.
Eh, I figured that appraisers would only be looking at the features you mentioned. But my husband feels differently. We need to do a bunch of spring cleaning anyway, so I don’t mind doing that, but I don’t want to be stressed out about it!
We are doing one or two jobs today that might be helpful. For example, my husband just fixed our creaky steps by shoring them up from the underside. He replaced the drywall, that he had removed, but there are gaps at the edges that need some molding. So he’s putting up the molding so it looks “finished.”
In any case, we’re certain that our house will appraise “high enough” for our purposes no matter what. The basic value is there. We just want to do what we can.
That stuff doesn’t matter to appraisers at all. Especially the painting and light switches - that is just a huge waste of time. What you listed does matter when selling - but not to an appraiser.
What others have said about sfootage, # bed and bath, local comparable sales are correct. An appraisers Opinion of values should be fairly straight forward and without predjudice to how you use or decorate you home.
that being said…it does not hurt to have your home in top notch condition and “looking good”. I teneded to suspect inferior matenenace and care when the place was a frigging Pig Stye.
Last time I had an appraisal, I chatted fervently with the appraiser, and asked him lots of of questions about his job and the history of the property and so on. We got on so well that he completely (and accidentally) overlooked several major flaws in the house, which then sold for a record price.
