How Do You Appeal an Improvement? When you improve your property by, for example, adding a new room or putting on a new roof, you will likely get a new appraisal. Generally speaking, most counties will reevaluate your property at that time and often will significantly increase its value. Again, appeal—first to the appraiser in … Read more
How Do You Challenge the State’s Appraisal? This is a rather different matter. Whenever you own real property, the state (or county) appraises it for tax purposes. These appraisals are typically made when the property is first improved (a home built on it), when it’s sold, and, in some jurisdictions, every so many years thereafter. … Read more
How Do You Challenge a Lender’s Appraisal? There are essentially two methods of challenging a bad (in your opinion) lender’s appraisal. The above example lists one: go to a different lender, one who has some reason to see it your way. TRAP Arguing with a lender over the amount of an appraisal is a futile … Read more
What Do You Negotiate When a Lender’s Appraiser Says “No!”? I had a neighbor who, after her husband’s death, decided she wanted to sell a vacation home that she and her husband had owned. She talked to a few brokers, got a feel for the market, and put it up for sale for $550,000. (It … Read more
How Do You Keep Personal Property Out of the Deal? There’s another perspective here, and that’s the view of the seller. Thus far we’ve been seeing how a buyer can get a seller to throw in a piece of personal property. But how does a seller keep a buyer from demanding this? The answer is … Read more
How to Bargain for Personal Property: How Do You Negotiate to Get Personal Property Included in the Deal? As a buyer, you may fall in love with a piece of personal property just as Rita and Peter did in our example. It could be a beautiful, bell shaped glass chandelier in the dining room. Maybe … Read more
How to Bargain for Personal Property: What Is Personal Property? It’s important to understand the technical distinction between real and personal property. Real properly refers to the land and anything attached to the land, including the house, fences, separate garage, sheds, and so forth. Personal property generally refers to anything that you can take with … Read more
How to Bargain for Personal Property Often buyer and seller will negotiate over more than just the house itself. At stake may be a dining room chandelier, a refrigerator or stove, a washer and dryer. Even children’s outdoors swings may be up for grabs. I recently sold a home in which I had put an … Read more
Negotiating with a Builder: Mortgage Buy Downs In the days of higher interest rates (as happens periodically), the reason that builders can’t sell their homes is that people can’t qualify for mortgages. As an inducement to purchase, therefore, some times builders will be willing to negotiate a buy down. In a buy down, the builder … Read more
Negotiating with a Builder: What You Can Negotiate With a builder you can negotiate price, terms, options, and extras. Keep in mind, however, that often an individual owner on a resale has more flexibility than a builder. An owner may have been in the house for years and built up a considerable equity. If you … Read more
