Is there "soft appraisal"?

[Leeor Neh]

Is it possible to contact appraisal people (or someone else; no idea who) and ask for a "soft appraisal" based on images and current known conditions, but without them going to the property?

By "soft appraisal," I mean to get an estimate of how much the house is worth/would appraise if I'd do XYZ to it.

Basically, I'm looking to get an experienced view (as I'm a new out-of-state investor) to know what the house could be worth. 

I'm looking to invest in TX, and I don't know the area that well. I can look at Zillow or any other websites, but I don't know how much the information is worthy from an appraisal point of view. So the way that I see it is that I prefer to pay someone $200-$500 to validate my price hypothesis. 

* I'm not asking for a specific person, as I know this is not allowed by the forum's rules. But I only ask to know if such a thing exists 

[Loic Yarde]

@Leeor Neh Change your mindset. Agents should be your best friends we need then even if it's off-markets. I take care of all my agents who assist me even the off-markets. They can tell you alot about the area where your subject property and they can provide CMA reports which will help you figure out whether you should pay for an appraisal. You can't go about paying for an appraisal for every property you like. Start with an agent get CMA or even BPO then compare that with your own comps you pull from zillow/redfin. Then if the market value all falls into the same range then you can confidently move forward with an appraisal at your own expense.