Here’s another prime example of how a flat-fee listing (or FSBO) can cost you big. It pays to have an experienced, connected professional Realtor® on your side.
I did a flat fee MLS listing. A realtor came and looked at my house. He liked it and said he wanted to buy it for himself. We agreed on a price, signed all the contracts, and worked cooperatively with the title company. Everything was moving along fine and then i get a call from my buyer and he says bad news, the appraisal came in below sell price. I asked him to send me the appraisal. Immediately, i noticed the sale price assumed by the appraiser was $16,000 less than the contract price that i agreed to with the buyer. i asked him why this was and we determined that he had sent his original offer of 260 to the loan processor and the loan processor took that as the sell price. Mind you, this was not an executed contract, just an offer. the actual contract was for 276. house was appraised at 264..
Meanwhile, i am in contract to buy another house and have been expending money towards this purchase. i will not pay the difference because of his mistake. what do i do?
About Ryan Hukill
Sounds like the appraiser may have been influenced by the sale price. You could get a local appraiser to review the original appraisal, get a new appraisal or adjust your selling price. Appraisers by law are to be independent and not bias due to the sales price. If you believe this is what has happened, get a review appraisal and report him to the state appraisal board. Gun-Shy appraisers who report the lowest value in the range they get, are falsely damaging the market as much as those giving the highest possible value did in early/mid 2000s. Hope this works out for you, and if this appraiser is being influenced by listed sale price, hope he is out of business soon.