Keeping an appraisal from complicating selling or refinancing

Unexpectedly low appraisals can happen for a number of reasons, especially when foreclosures, short sales and other distressed properties abound.

Joanna Zimring Towne thought refinancing her Altadena home would be simple.

When Zimring Towne and husband Andrew Towne, a 48-year-old television lighting technician, bought the two-bedroom home for $535,000 in 2006, the appraiser valued it at about $600,000.

During the November 2011 inspection, Towne walked around the property with the appraiser. The couple were being charged $500 by the management company that employed the appraiser, but they considered it a minor sacrifice, hoping to reduce their mortgage rate to 3.25% from 6.9%.

Then the valuation report arrived a few days later, and hope turned to anger.

Joanna Zimring (Irfan Khan, Los Angeles Times)

"The appraiser spent about 10 minutes in the house, didn't take photos and gave us an appraisal of $350,000," said Zimring Towne, 37, director of the career services center at Los Angeles' Pierce College. Not taken into account, she said, was that "in this area, we have tremendous [price] variability within a mile radius."

The appraisal process has become a headache for homeowners looking to secure historically low interest rates and buyers and sellers hoping to reach property deals.

More than a third of real estate agents say they've recently seen lower-than-expected appraisals hold back home sales, even though buyers and sellers had reached agreement on price, according to a survey by the National Assn. of Realtors.

Of the agents surveyed, 11% said a contract was canceled and 9% said a contract was delayed because of a low valuation, the association said. And 15% said they had a contract renegotiated to a lower sale price because of a low appraisal valuation.

"The combined issues of stringent mortgage lending requirements and appraisal frictions are hampering otherwise qualified buyers from purchasing a home in a timely fashion and in some cases are preventing them from buying at all," Lawrence Yun, the Realtors group's chief economist, said in a statement accompanying the survey results.

The Realtors group and others say sometimes problems arise because appraisers, employed by large appraisal management companies, may not have sufficient experience in a neighborhood.

In addition, real estate agents say, a low valuation can occur when an appraiser doesn't take a home's condition into account, hasn't kept up with market values or compares the property to homes that really aren't similar in a market complicated by foreclosures, short sales and other distressed properties. Often, lenders are being cautious to avoid some of the valuation mistakes made during the housing-bubble years.

Whatever the reason, appraisal horror stories are easy to find.

Leo Nordine of Nordine Realtors has been unable to refinance his 3,500-square-foot Hermosa Beach home because he can't get the property appraised for a high enough value.

"I have had offers of $4.5 million. It appraised for $2.5 [million] in September. Tear-down lots on my street sell for more than that," he said.

"I have been in the business for 25 years. I know everyone. I have perfect credit. And I can't even refinance my house," the 59-year-old real estate broker said. "If I have no control, the average guy who doesn't know anything about real estate has no control either."
Rosemary Kubeck-Shumski, 47, a mortgage loan advisor and branch manager in Redondo Beach, recalled a four-unit Torrance investment property that was appraised to be worth $350,000 less than expected in June 2010.

Kubeck-Shumski, who has been in the business since 1991, said, "I could tell the guy did not go to the property. He pulled photos from the Multiple Listing Service."

After showing comparative values on local listings and providing original photos, Kubeck-Shumski got the appraisal bumped up to $975,000 from $635,000.

Miguel Soler, 38, an agent with Re/Max in Valencia, said that when a property has multiple offers, the homeowner should ask the appraiser to note the number of bids in the report. "This shows that the market is appreciating and the amount of interest in the property," he said.

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