Short Sale - Getting an appraisal

[Dominique Mitchell]

Hello BiggerPockets.

I am a newbie hoping I have my first deal completed soon. I have a question about short sales.

The home I have under contract is a single family 3bed 1bath. Will be adding an additional bathroom on the main level. The seller wanted 99k and I offered 80k and my offer was accepted. I'm looking at a potential ARV of 160k- 170k, maybe a little higher with the additional bathroom. My contractor gave me a rehab estimate of 35k. I am using a hard money lender to purchase and rehab this deal. My plan is to refi into a normal mortgage and then keep it as a rental.

So the property is got to be a short sale. And we arestill waiting approval from the bank. My hard money lender wants me to go ahead and get an appraisal done. Is this normal? The bank hasn’t approved my offer yet. I would be spending a few hundred bucks for the appraisal. And if my offer isn’t accepted, I would be get an appraisal for no reason right? Again this is my first deal so I just want to be clear on this short sale process.

Thank you!!