Horrible VA appraisal 30k below contract price!!!

[Joseph Druther]

Hey Guys,

So I have a house we just finished not too long ago. It turned out really awesome and I'll be posting in the success story forum before it's all said and done, but for right now we have a major issue!!!

My team did an awesome job on the house, and it's located in the hottest market around right now. Everything on this house is basically new. It was a TOTAL gut job. Within the first day we had multiple offers and offers quickly shot above asking price. We didn't even try to push the market over there, even though as nice as it turned out we definitely could have. We went slightly above comp sales (which averaged about $182/SF) and accepted an offer for $185/SF, or 285K. The appraiser used comps that were similar enough, although one was from 9 months ago and NONE of them were in as nice or as new a condition as ours, and they ranged from 182-198/SF. He appraised ours at 255K or $166/SF!!!!!!!! It's absolutely ridiculous.

This appraiser has a bad reputation for way under appraising properties, ESPECIALLY on flipped houses. A colleague of mine just had the same VA appraiser and came in 15K less than contract, and I've heard multiple other stories. Basically everyone can't stand this guy. We are in the process of trying to refute the appraisal, but in the meantime, is there any other action we can take to get this guy off the list of VA appraisers?

It's like he has a bone to pick with investors or something. He knows how much we paid for it, and we will be making a good profit. But he is about to cost our buyers a lot of money in due diligence, inspections, and all the rest. We have people lined up ready to go if this contract falls through, but its frustrating that one person's horrible opinion can ruin a deal like that. Nobody in their right mind would appraise the house the way he did. 

We are thinking about signing a petition with all the agents to not allow him on their properties. Think something like that would work?

Any advice or suggestions??

[Russell Brazil]

This should have been nipped in the bud before the appraisal. If you were assigned a difficult appraiser, you should have had your agent contact the buyers agent to request that a different appraiser be assigned.