Saturday, August 25, 2007

Appraising My Appraiser

From the archives:

My appraiser is worthless.

Explanation: Back when I was buying my townhouse, the whole process got delayed because of a miscommunication between the mortgager and the appraiser. I waited and waited for the appraisal to come in, but it never did, due to the fact that they never knew they were supposed to do it. Anyway, that led me to appraise my appraiser. And there you go.

Interestingly, after all that time, the appraiser came and miraculously appraised the property for exactly the value I was purchasing it for. I'm just amazed at how the sale price was perfectly set to the exact value of the house. Absolutely amazed. Wait... you think there's a chance that the appraiser knew the sale price going in? Noooo... I don't believe that. If that were true, then the appraiser's job would pretty much be just to match the sale price and collect their cut of the closing costs. Next thing you're going to tell me is that title insurance, mortgage title insurance, title mortgage protection insurance, and that check I made out to my lawyer's brother with the gambling habit were all manufactured closing costs as well.

1 comment:

JCA said...

OMG, tell me about it. My closing costs were full of absurd fictions, including a breathtaking District of Columbia "recordation tax" (it can't possibly cost them $10,000 to file my deed, but that didn't stop them from charging me).

And my appraiser also magically found my condo to be worth precisely my offer price. It's miraculous!