Charlotte’s San Francisco Real Estate Blog

A seemingly boring topic; the Appraisal can be your worst nightmare. When you make an offer on a property, or if you are selling a property, as long as there is a mortgage involved, the property needs to appraise. That means that a professional property appraisor reviews comparable sales in the immediate vicinity within the last three months and compares your home or the home you want to buy to those properties.

What happens if the home appraises for LESS THAN your offer price? The Bank will only loan to the appraised value of the home. At this point, you can:

1) make up the difference to the seller out of your pocket

2) ask the seller to reduce the price of the home to the appraised value

3) walk away from the deal

4) Ask the bank to get another appraisal done (you will be asked to pay for this)

Does an low appraisal mean the home is worth less than what you offered to pay?

Not necessarily. There are a lot of appraisors working in areas they are unfamiliar with, thanks to the new “RESPA” laws, passed in January, 2010, the goal of which was to safeguard consumers. That’s not exactly how it’s turned out.

Hey! Blog World, I am back.

I got really busy selling houses. Then nobody ever emailed me to say they noticed I wasn’t blogging. Then my fiance told me he missed my blogging. Then a friend asked me why I stopped. So I felt a little better. My Diva writer’s ego was fed enough to come back to my loyal two readers.  If you like what I do, please let me know. I am not indefatigable; I am just a tired  & busy realtor. I want to shout and sing out about Bernal Heights. I live here! I love it. It’s sunny. It’s incredibly easy to get anywhere North, South, West, East from my neighborhood. I love Holly Park. I love Bernal Hill. Fourth of July there were thousands of people up there in the dark trying to see fireworks. We couldn’t, really, but it felt nice to be outside at night with a bunch of happy people just trying to celebrate our country, or maybe just to see things explode.  We have a cool new bakery (The Sandbox Bakery; serving up pastries and bento boxes!)  on Cortland, and a really neat new mini-mall that harkens back to the Middle Ages- which I find cool- it’s little stalls doing different artisanal foods and a knife sharpener. I half expect to find freshly milked cows or goats in there. Come see for yourself.

I want to mention a few great family homes under $700K while I am at it:

4145 Folsom St. is a 3 bed, 2 bath home with a sunny deck and yard listed for $699K. You can not see the highways; and it is walking distance to both the Allemany Farmers Market and Cortland. I will be holding this house OPEN Sunday 2-4pm. Come visit me!

Also interesting is 431 Joost Ave. While located in the less-sunny “Sunnyside,” it is also a great home, and priced aggressively at $619,000. It is a regular sale, and is close to the Glen Park Bart Station.

Happy Fourth of July to all my fellow citizens! I love the Fourth. I love the idea that we are all in this together, and that we make joint decisions with 400,000,000 other people about how we are going to handle our affairs.

Now Credit Scores. Let me gently inform you: if you are applying for a loan with someone else, say, your husband or wife, the bank will use the person with the lowest credit scores “middle” score. (there are three credit bureaus; the middle score is the middle number reported) The person with the higher score’s credit basically counts for nothing; zero; nada.  I firmly believed that the “Credit Score Repair” companies were massive frauds, but I have changed my mind. Many of them are, but not all. I recently have come across a company that can fix errors and do what’s called an Instant Repair with all three credit reporting bureaus. They can also work on real credit lapses depending on how old they are to have them removed, and you can possibly have an improved credit score within a week to ten days. And, as you know, the higher your score the better your loan rates. Happy Fourth and Be Careful With Your Credit! Please call me or email with questions on this topic or for a referral to a Credit Repair company. 415-279-0289 or charlotteerwin@zephyrsf.com.