Long-Distance Appraising
A new trend in the industry is using long-distance remote control appraisers from out of the area. These inexperienced appraisers may travel hundreds of miles to areas they are not familiar with, nor do they have the legally required local source data that is needed for a USPAP compliant appraisal report. These appraisers are not familiar with the unique nuances and special aspects of your specific neighborhood, and typically they either significantly undervalue or overvalue your property due to this limited local knowledge. For all this inaccuracy, you usually pay a significant premium to cover the additional appraiser travel charges such as the automobile, gas, insurance costs, and may even foot the bill for an overnight hotel stay.
Areas in Santa Barbara County usually have many invisible subtleties such as school districts, geographic boundaries, water districts, unique areas, etc. and these can have a significant impact on the value of your property. Only a local expert who has a strong geographic familiarity will truly understand your property, and how to properly value these many nuances. In addition, a specialist who frequently performs appraisals in the area is very familiar with all the local comparables, and in many cases they have personally inspected and performed appraisals on most of the area comparable properties as well.
As part of our ongoing appraisal business, we perform numerous appraisal reviews each year, and find that many of the recent out of area appraisers significantly over and undervalue the properties, and the reports were fret with inaccuracies and missing required data due to the appraisers inexperience, unfamiliarity with the area, and lack of USPAP required supporting data. Some of these properties had to be reappraised at considerable cost, or the loan was simply rejected by the underwriter. The undervalued properties did not meet the qualifying value, so the unfortunate borrower/client ends up paying for an appraisal on a property that should have gone through the entire loan process, but was needlessly canceled from the outset.
Choose a true local expert for your next Real Estate Appraisal. Seward Real Estate Services whe has been doing appraisals on the Central Indiana since 1994. We maintain all the required source data, including comprehensive on-line access to Public Property Records, Zoning, Flood, and all Local Multiple Listing Service (MLS) Boards. Instead of wasting time and paying travel expenses for an inexperienced and unfamiliar out of area appraiser, give us a call and let a local expert perform a quality Real Estate Appraisal at a best value price.