What happens if your home’s appraised value doesn’t match its contract price? This is a legitimate concern for sellers in our market since so many listings are fetching multiple offers.
The first thing you can do is have your Realtor check the appraisal for errors. Appraisers are super busy right now (along with everyone else), so there might be a typo somewhere in their report that threw everything off. In one of our client’s recent appraisals, for example, the home’s square footage was incorrect. After we identified the error and corrected it, everything was fine.
If there are no errors in the appraisal, your Realtor can submit a rebuttal. In this situation, we’ll pull comparable sales in your neighborhood and show them to the lender. They’ll then decide whether any changes are necessary. This is still a challenge, though, and it doesn’t always work out in favor of the seller. However, it’s still an opportunity to increase the appraisal so that it’s closer to the contract price.
If neither of these options work, your Realtor will have to go back to the drawing board and renegotiate with the buyer’s agent to come up with an agreed-upon price. Buyers and sellers understand that the market has been increasing these past few years. If you work with us, we’ll negotiate a win-win price to get you the most money possible for your home.
As always, if you have questions about this or any real estate topic, don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We’re happy to help.
