9 tips for high value home appraisals
Whether your refinancing or need a fair market valuation of your property for tax reasons you’ll need to get an appraisal—and there are ways to ensure you get the highest price point possible for your home.
When I decided to move into a more family friendly home, we decided not to sell our first home. Instead, we rented it out.
To avoid a huge capital gains tax bill later on—when we do decide to sell the house—we opted to pay for a home appraisal. At a cost of $300 to $500, depending on how big or extensive your property is, the appraisal provides an up to date current market value for a home. We can then use this value to calculate whatever capital gains we may need to pay on the home, rather then using ourpurchase price (we’d done extensive renovations to the house and knew the value had increased since we’d moved in).
So I did a bit of digging and it turns out there are some tips for getting the best possible appraisal value for your home. Here’s nine that can help you get top current market value:
Clean up. Sure, that sounds simple, but we’re not just talking about making the bed or cleaning the cat litter. We’re also talking about giving your carpet or floors a good vacuum or scrub and making sure dust isn’t prevalent on tables, furnishings or baseboards. Also, get rid of projects. If you’ve got a car-in-progress in the backyard, consider removing it or, at least, building a contained shelter around it.
Pay attention to curb appeal. While a few dirty dishes in the sink won’t impact your home’s value, that unruly row hedge and your uncut lawn (or building snow mound) will. Take an hour and spruce up the outside of your home. Not only is it the appraiser’s first impression, but the appraiser will spend a bit more time staring at the outside of your house as he/she makes notes and takes measurements.
List your updates. After installing new copper plumbing and re-doing all the electrical components—at a combined cost of well over $10,000—it’s a shame not to highlight these upgrades. So, keep a list. State what work was done, by what company and when. If possible, give the appraiser this list. That way they have a reference as to what has been updated and how recent or professional that work was done.
Make your own list of notables. Love your home? Then brag about it. For instance, in the deep urban centre of Toronto, parking and a large outdoor space isn’t just nice, it’s a selling feature. So, make a list of features your home has and provide this list to your appraiser. Yes, they will compare your home to the homes in the area, but they’ll have a better idea of what your home offers, which could increase your appraisal value.
Provide your own comps. I was stunned when one of the three appraisers we hired came in with a value $30,000 less than their competitors. When I asked about the difference, I was simply told that the comparables in the area forced the price down. Considering this particular section of Toronto has appreciated, on average, by 20% over the last three years I knew that this appraiser had been looking at the wrong comparables. For that reason, I think it’s prudent to actually develop your own list of comparables. Keep an eye for homes selling on your street or area and then print off the MLS listing—or better yet, get a sales sheet (if the homeowner signed a disclosure agreement). While the appraiser will look for their own comparables, it doesn’t hurt to provide them with a few of your own.
If you need to spend to update, be prudent. Many people think the mantra “bathrooms and kitchens” is the panacea for getting high prices on homes. It isn’t. First, consider the fact that kitchen and bathroom remodels can be some of the priciest reno costs. For that reason, it may be more prudent to spend a bit of money, for just a bit of updating. Paint, new carpets, new light or plumbing fixtures don’t break the bank, but can provide a dramatic impact.
Keep the $500 rule in mind. Appraisers will often appraise homes in $500 increments. They’ll also take this into account if a repair or upgrade is required . That means leaky faucets, cracked windows and missing handrails can have a significant financial impact on your home’s value—even if it doesn’t cost that much to fix.
Difference between when your home was built and effective age. The home we left was built in 1898 and when people hear this they often expect the worse. But we knew, from doing our homework, that our renovations and upgrades and effectively altered the “effective age” of our home. Now we had a century home with an effective age between three and seven years.
Lose the pets (temporarily). Finally, when the appraiser comes to your home, don’t have your dog out barking and snipping to lunge and smell the stranger. This can put off would-be appraisers, which can impact the value they provide (although, technically they say it shouldn’t).
One last tip: don’t bug the appraiser with questions and comments. Instead, simply be prepared to answer any of their questions and, if you do have concerns or queries, wait until they’ve completed their inspection, then ask.
By following these tips, you’ll get the highest appraised value for your home and will help with refinancing or minimizing future tax payments.
On the onset of a new year, it is a great opportunity to start off your personal budget planning so that you can be on the right foot year long.
Here are 5 tips which will help you in getting financial success in 2012:
- Plan a yearly budget: Though this might be a bit problematic, but it is a good option to build a yearly budget at the start of the year. This will help you judge your financial picture in respect to your annual salary. Also, this will help you in breaking down your annual expenses into monthly expenditures. So, the burden on you, at the year end, would be less.
- Take a look at your finances: Take a break from you other work and try to examine all your financial statements. If you find that you have equity in your property but your present mortgage rates are quite high, then you should research and try to get a refinance with better rates. You can also negotiate with your credit card company in order to get better deals.
- Don’t avoid your doctor: Saving money is good but not at the cost of your health. If you’re facing some problems with your health, make sure that you visit your doctor. This will help you prevent huge medical debts later on. You must know that it’s cheaper to visit a doctor’s office than to visit an urgent care clinic.
- Take out a life insurance policy: This applies to those who don’t have a life insurance policy. It’s never too late to take out a life insurance policy. You should contact local insurance agents and try to get an affordable life insurance policy. This will be a great effort from your side to protect your loved ones in case something bad happens to you. You should at least know how much debt you have so that you can take out a life insurance policy which will cover that amount.
- Make a budget for emergency: It is easy to set up a budget for your known expenses. But it is equally difficult to set up a budget for your unknown expenses. An emergency can come up anytime. Medical emergencies can be financially stressful and you may have to shell out a lot of money. Your car can break down any time and you may have to end up paying a lot of money from your own pocket. Keeping these things in mind, you can set up an emergency fund so that you can take help of this fund at the time of need.
So just come back to reality as earning money online and becoming rich through the internet is possible, but it’s not quite easy and quick. Before you begin with any work you must know that what it is all about and how it will work, just explore about all the jobs and then choose the best one. Here are few jobs that will help you earn money online:
Make Money Online - Write and Get Paid:
If you are good enough to write a pretty well content on anything so have some work of your own, you can publish it or sell it to some website and enjoy the pay. Alternatively, you can just start writing for a website.
Make Money Online - Blogging:
Another way by which you can earn while sitting at your home is through blogging. Just make you own blog and start posting on it. Market your blog on different social websites. When you have enough visitors on your blog post some ads on the blog. And whenever someone visits your blog and will click on the ads you will be gotten paid for that click. In this way, you can earn money on blogging, but it is quite tough as you have to update your blog on regular bases.
Make Money Online - Review and Get Paid:
There are some websites, which pay you when you write reviews about the products or other things available on that website. They are free to register, but as soon as you are done with the registration, write reviews for the products and you will start getting the pay, but the amount of money depends on the product and its publicity and most importantly that how many visitors your review had attracted.
Make Money Online - Read, Surf or Sign up and get paid:
There are many newsletter websites, which pay you for signing up on them or reading their mails. These kinds of websites are called Get Paid To or GPT’s.
