This past month, I had the good fortune to be assigned a higher-dollar asset. The property was a 3500 square foot, 5 bedroom, 6 bath home with a 3 1/2 car garage and a pool on 4 acres located in the Greater Orlando Area. The house, which I named "The Palace", was built about 5 years ago and although it has recently been abused, it had certainly once been someone's dream home. It was custom-everything including 10-20 foot ceilings, high end cabinets and granite countertops, a sunken wet bar, a huge loft that was set up as a video room, etc. Amongst other things, the property is unique in that most homes in the area are located on small subdivision lots, not acreage.
As a State-Certified Appraiser for 20 years, when it came time to do the BPO, I went the extra mile and spent about a couple of hours just doing research, not only looking for comps, but also contacting the county to talk to them about land values, etc. I made a point of studying each of my comps and really analyzing the similarities and differences between them and my subject property, considering all amenities that I thought might play into the market value. In the end, I came up with a value of $515,000 on the property.
A few days later, I got a call from the asset manager asking if I would revisit my BPO since the second opinion appraisal had come in at a "significantly different" value than mine. She didn't tell me, but I guessed that the other value must have come in lower, which worried me because I certainly didn't want to end up with an overpriced listing that I couldn't sell.
One thing that I did note in her conversation, was that she mentioned that the appraiser was a man, and I specifically remembered that it was a female who had called the office looking for access information and grumbling about the difficulty in finding comps. It became pretty obvious to me that the report was being done by some associate in their office and not the agent that the bank believed they were assigning to. I went back and spent more time reviewing my BPO and opted to stick with my value.
The asset manager came back to me a day later and told me that if I felt that confident about the value, that she would push the client to go with mine over the other one. She then told me their value had come in at $399,000! I was panicked that I had just set myself up for disaster!!
The bank chose to list the house at $505,000 and I am THRILLED to say that I had two offers in the first 48 hours, and in the end we took a contract for $515,000, which has subsequently closed...commission in the bank account!!
In the end, because I took the time and interest in really nailing the BPO, the bank, the asset manager and I all ended up making more money. I am a hero to my asset manager and she is a hero to her client, the bank. The appraiser who dumped his assignment on his associate; well I doubt he is going to get much more BPO work from this company and I think he just assured himself that he won't be listing REO's for them.
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Tary
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Singletary (Tary) H. Snyder, e-Pro
Broker, Texas Lone Star Realty
1015 North Sunset Canyon Drive
Dripping Springs, TX 78620
Off/Vm:(512)892-6800 Fax:(512)288-5595 Mob:(512)751-6360
mailto:tsnyder@snyderhomes.com
Alternate mailto:tsnyderus@yahoo.com
Homepage:< http://www.snyderhomes.com>
NAR (National Association of Realtors) "2006 Good Neighbor Honorable Mention"
Volunteers Needed:< http://www.snyderhomes.com/DisasterResponse/>
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