Appraisals R Us

ZERO STARS. If you are asking a lender for refinancing and this appraiser is selected: SAY NO!!!
I have a market analysis of the area and even Zillow had my house at $ 50,000 more than what this company appraised my house. Seems like they just used the average of sold houses (the area has different kinds of houses and areas). Needless to say, I could not refinance because the appraisal came in around $ 100,000 lower. Next time I’ll make sure the appraiser selected knows the area well. Just lost $ 430 :(

The appraiser informed us the night before that he will be at our home between 8am and 10am. Without a phone call or even picking up my calls, he shows up at 2pm. He said, «Sorry I’m a little late. The location prior to coming here took a bit longer than expected.» 1) A LITTLE??? 2) «location PRIOR»??? What time were you supposed to be there. SIX A. M??? 3) YOU COULD HAVE CALLED OR AT LEAST ANSWER MY CALLS!!!
How unprofessional! I tried calling him several times and he never once picked up my calls. And when I tried calling the number listed on their site, no answer. Keep in mind I took the day off from work to wait for him and I planned on spending the rest of the day with my 13 month old OUTDOORS somewhere and not cooped up at home waiting for this guy so of course I was all ready, my daughter was all ready, her diaper bag was all ready, her food was all packed… WE COULD HAVE GONE OUT AND CAME BACK BUT NOOOOOOO YOU HAD TO SHOW UP RIGHT WHEN SHE WAS TRYING TO FALL ASLEEP AND YOU WOKE HER UP! THANKS FOR THAT! OH, AND I HAD TO USE A VACATION DAY! THANKS FOR THAT!
BUT! Since I needed my house to be valued at a certain price so that the loan-​to-​value ratio would be lower and knowing how appraisals work with having to list several comparable properties and how they use their little search engines to find «comparable» homes around the area, I tried to be nice to this LATE guy and warned him how the homes in our neighborhood are all custom homes and that the one down the street that just sold is probably going to hurt us because it sold at a much lower price than what it was first listed for because it needed a LOOOOOOT of work, he said that he would definitely throw that one out of the homes that he would list. Right when I got our appraisal, guess which house was listed first? YUP! That one house he said he wouldn’t list.
Ok…I get it. You might have had to list that one after all, after being pressured by the bank, but don’t make promises you can’t keep. And seriously? WHY DO YOU EVEN HAVE A CELL PHONE?
OH! And I asked the person handling our loan how close we are to closing and she wasn’t sure because the underwriter is waiting for the revised appraisal, OF COURSE! She said there was just a line missing from the appraisal that needed to be added… just ONE line of information.
Needless to say, I wasn’t mad. If I was, I would have found a way to make Unilocal allow me to give ZERO stars but Appraisals «R» Us didn’t piss me off THAT much. After all, I just ended up with a later-​than-​expected closing date, a higher APR, a wasted vacation day, an unhappy baby and a higher blood pressure. No biggy.