The assignment where you have the least say
This is the ordinary residential appraisal — the one most people mean when they say the word — and it is also the one a borrower has almost no control over. Worth understanding before you spend an afternoon looking for an appraiser.
Appraiser independence rules put the order in the lender’s hands and bar the parties to the transaction from choosing who does it. In practice that means an appraisal management company assigns the work from a panel. If you are buying or refinancing and you ring me directly, the honest answer is usually that I cannot take it and that hiring me would not help your loan.
That is not a brush-off. It is the mechanism working: the valuation is a check on the loan, not a service to the borrower, and it would be worth nothing to the lender if the borrower had picked the appraiser.
Who is the client, and who pays
These come apart on almost every loan and the difference is not a technicality.
The lender is the client and the intended user. The report is developed for the lender’s credit decision. You usually pay for it, and your right is to receive a copy — which federal rules require be delivered promptly, and on most loans before closing. What you do not get is the ability to direct the work, add an intended user, or send the report somewhere else afterwards.
If what you actually want is a valuation for you — before listing, before making an offer, to settle an argument — that is a different assignment with a different intended user, and I can take it. Say which one you mean on the call and it gets sorted in a minute.
Forms, briefly
The loan product picks the form, not the appraiser:
- 1004 — the single-family workhorse.
- 1073 — a condominium unit, which asks about the association as well as the unit. See the condominium page.
- 1025 — two-to-four family, with a rent schedule and an operating statement. See two-to-four family.
- 1004D — a completion certificate or a re-inspection, not a fresh appraisal.
If the order names the wrong one for your property, that is worth catching before the inspection rather than after the report.
FHA is a valuation plus an inspection
Not really an inspection, but it functions as one and it surprises sellers.
On an FHA loan the appraiser also checks the property against HUD’s minimum property requirements — safety, security, soundness. Peeling paint on a house built before 1978, a missing stair handrail, a heating system that does not run, exposed wiring. Those get written up, and the loan does not close until they are cured and re-inspected.
None of it is discretionary and none of it is personal. If you are listing a house likely to draw FHA buyers, walking it with that list in mind beforehand is an hour well spent.
When the number comes in low
It happens, and the useful response is narrow rather than loud.
The lender will lend against the lower of contract price or appraised value, so the gap becomes cash, a renegotiation, or a walk-away. Your route is a request for reconsideration of value, made through the lender.
What moves one: a specific closed sale the report did not use, with a reason it is more comparable than what was used. What does not move one: disagreeing with the total, a list of active listings, or a note about what the house means to you. And no appraiser may accept a request to reach a particular figure — that request is prohibited on both ends, and an appraiser who entertains it has made the report useless to the lender anyway.
What I need from the property
Access to all of it, and a contact who can actually open the door. Basement, attic, garage, utility room, and every unit where there is more than one.
Where there is a purchase contract, I need it — analysing the contract is part of the assignment rather than a courtesy. Improvement documentation and permits help, particularly in this housing stock, where the difference between a finished basement that counts and one that does not is frequently a piece of paper from the municipality.
New Jersey specifics
- Older stock across Paterson, Passaic, Clifton and the Oranges frequently carries unpermitted basement finishes and rear additions. These come up in almost every lender appraisal in those markets and are better raised than discovered.
- FHA appraisals carry a minimum property requirement inspection on top of the valuation: peeling paint on a pre-1978 house, missing handrails, an inoperative furnace and bare wiring all get called out, and the loan does not close until they are cured.
- Municipal boundaries in Bergen and Essex run mid-block in places, so two houses a few hundred feet apart can sit in different districts under different rates — which a radius-drawn comparable search cannot see.
What you receive
- A report on the form the loan product requires
- A conclusion supported by closed sales, with every adjustment explained
- Any condition item that affects marketability or safety, reported plainly
- Signed USPAP certification
- Delivery to the ordering lender, and a borrower copy as federal rules require
What I need from you
- Access, and a contact who can actually open the door
- The purchase contract, where there is one — an appraiser is required to analyse it
- Improvement documentation and permits
- Any known defect, especially one a photograph would show anyway