“Low appraisal.” That’s a fairly subjective phrase. From the appraiser’s point of view, an appraisal is neither high nor low, it simply is. It’s the market value for the property. “Low appraisal” is a term thrown around by other industry participants who are looking to throw the blame on someone. It’s a topic that has seen a lot of headlines recently and everyone is weighing in on the issue. Now we have an appraisal management company (AMC)’s take on the issue, as CoesterVMS posted about the issue in its blog Realty, Unreality. 

Edward Pinto, who penned the CoesterVMS blog, quoted from a National Association of Realtors (NAR) survey which found that 35 percent of Realtors had at least one instance of a contract problem relating to a home appraisal. To that, Pinto said:

“However, the fact that 35 percent experienced an instance of a low appraisal tells us nothing about the actual prevalence or rate of low appraisals being experienced in the marketplace. For that we would need to know the total number of appraisals covered by the survey and the number that came in low. Of course, information on the distribution of the lows and highs would also be helpful.”

Not convinced by the NAR survey, Pinto pointed to an FNC survey that rebutted the NAR survey at the time. 

“This is good news in terms of protecting the lender and consumer as the appraisal process is supposed to be a check, not a rubber stamp.  Ask the buyers who benefitted from a lower purchase as a result of an appraisal coming in low. NAR’s survey is useful in that it found that Realtors indicated about 40 percent of low appraisals resulted in the transaction being renegotiated to a lower sales price.”

Check out the full article and the hilarious Whopper-O-Meter rating.