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jeanneh65 · Guest

I am selling my property. I had a buyer who was unsure of paying for an appraisal so i paid for it. Now it has come back and is in the price range that we had agreed to in the contract. Now she is tearing apart the appraisal. Can anyone tell me how much a pool, spa, heater for the pool and screened enclosure adds to the appraisal. I live in south florida. palm beach county if that helps.

thanks

nemmar · Site Admin

On written appraisal reports you will see the price adjustments in the Direct Sales Comparison Approach section of the report. This is the area where the appraiser found recent comparable sales to help estimate the market value of the subject property (your house). The appraiser makes the price adjustments for many items and factors of the sale comps to equalize them to have a price that the appraiser feels the sales comp would have sold for if it had all the same qualities/characteristics as the subject property.

To determine if the appraiser's adjustments are accurate for the pool, spa, heater for the pool and screened enclosure you will need to talk with local appraisers in that immediate area of Palm Beach County. They must be licensed and have years of experience to confirm or dispute the appraiser's adjustments in his report. But remember, if two different appraisers have adjustments/market value estimates on their reports that are within 10% of each other, then either appraiser is NOT considered wrong. The reason for this is that real estate appraisal is NOT an exact science. An appraisal is an estimate of market value as determined by the appraiser as to what the typical buyer would pay for the subject property on the "as of" date of the appraisal under normal conditions (with conventional mortgage financing and no undue stress or influences).

Every neighborhood in the USA has it's own unique characteristics and that is why there are no set amounts or percentages that are used nationwide for a particular item in an appraisal report. People who are not licensed appraisers often do not know this. For example, the price adjustment in an appraisal report to make for a pool, spa, heater for the pool and screened enclosure located on a property in Tulsa, Oklahoma will be VERY DIFFERENT then the price adjustment for those same items in South Florida. That is why there are appraisers who know the local market and can accurately determine what the price adjustments should be for these items.

So my advice would be to have another licensed appraiser in your area take a look at the written report and the price adjustments made in the appraisal to determine if they are accurate. Since the buyer is tearing apart the appraisal, you may want to ask him/her to get the second opinion. However, the problem could be caused by a buyer getting "cold feet". It's possible the buyer is looking for excuses to back out of the deal since they are not sure they want to invest the money or lock themselves into a mortage loan payment for many years.

Let me know what the outcome is.