Would you challenge an appraisal for a HELOC?

[Jon McCarron]

Hi all,

I am in the middle of getting a HELOC for a house hack I am currently doing. My girlfriend and I have owned the house for 2+ years, did rehab, and have seen our surrounding market appreciate quite nicely.

We applied with a bank that only did a 75% LTV for a HELOC. They did a driveby appraisal which resulted in a good value, but the 75% ltv was too low for what we are looking for.

We opted to try a different bank that did higher LTV. The bank we chose did a drive by appraisal, and came in at a lower value. The bank asked if we wanted to do a walk through appraisal. We said yes (caveat was that if lower, then the bank had to use that number).

The walk through came in $2k lower than the drive by (which is totally fine), but the report used pretty bad comps in my opinion (I'm a realtor in the area). Sales over 6 months old, different neighborhoods were used, when closer proximity sales have happened more recently.

Question is : would you challenge the appraisal? Can you challenge for a HELOC? Does it make sense to do so , or should I be lucky to get a HELOC at all in this COVID world?

I am leaning toward taking the offer the bank gives (don't want to delay having the access to that cash) , but just wanted to see what the BP crowd thinks. Thanks!