Most sellers don’t need to get an appraisal
have agreed to with the available, local comparable sales.
Having said that, we agree that there are times that sellers will want to get far more for their place than what the market says it’s worth. Other times, listing brokers may tell sellers what they want to hear — that their homes are worth more than they are actually worth — with the hope they land the listing.
So, the system isn’t perfect. In the ideal world, appraisers would give estimates on what a home should list and sell for and hit the nail on the head every time. And, which agent wouldn’t like to pinpoint the exact sales price of a client’s home?
In either case, we have to assume that we are working with quality appraisers and quality brokers, that they have sufficient information to make a good recommendation on price to the owner, and that the owner’s own bias doesn’t affect that owner’s decisions in pricing the home.
The one thing we know for sure is that it will cost money for the home seller to obtain an official appraisal and real estate agents will do essentially the same work for free. It’s called a “comparative marketing analysis” and they do it for free because they hope to win the listing.
Appraising property is more of an art than a science. With all the information out there, most buyers have a good sense of what they’re willing to spend on a home and what a home is worth to them. On the flip side, many sellers know what other properties in the neighborhood are selling for but tend to inflate the value of their own property. In a perfect world, overpriced homes will sit on the market, unsold, until their prices come down and homes that are underpriced may end up in a bidding war.
And, that’s how it should work. Certainly, there are a limited number of homeowners who live in areas where few homes are sold or whose homes are unique in some way — they might benefit from hiring an appraiser. But in urban markets where there are a fair number of sales, a good real estate broker with solid knowledge of the area should have an excellent idea of what a home should (and likely will) sell for.