What is Appraised Value?

Appraised Value refers to the property value evaluation from a certain frozen moment in time. Professional appraisers perform these appraisals when the origination process of the mortgage is underway. Lenders themselves typically select specific property appraisers to do them. It is the borrowers who are expected to pay for getting the appraisal.

Home appraised value proves to be a critical factor in getting through the process of loan underwriting. It enjoys a special place in deciding the amount of money that buyers can borrow and according to what terms. As a key example, the LTV Loan to Value ratio is determined utilizing the appraised value. When the LTV proves to be higher than 80 percent, the lender will insist that the borrowers purchase PMI private mortgage insurance. Once the LTV declines to 78 percent or lower with an appraisal, the need for expensive PMI payments can be excused.

This appraised value should not be confused with market value. The two are both important in residential home transactions, for retail buildings, commercial property, land, and farms. Yet real distinctions between the appraised value and market value of real estate exist. The market values will be driven by consumers and their demand versus available home supply in a given city, county, or even region. The experts make the appraised values.

Appraised values of given properties relay the information in the form of a precise number on the value of the home or other property in question. These appraised values come from both the professional opinion of the appraiser as well as the data they gather from similar home sales on the same street, in the neighborhood, and in that section of the city. Market values on the other hand vary more dramatically. Buyers have great influence on the property’s market value. This is because any home is ultimately truly worth as much as a buyer will actually pay for it.

Sometimes people also confuse the idea of assessed value and appraised value. Assessed values are those which the city or town assessor’s office will put on a given property. They do this so that they can decide what amount of taxes should be levied and collected for the property tax. Whole towns and cities become assessed in a particular (from four months to twelve months) period. Qualified assistants will actually determine the final values once they interview the owners and examine the properties in question. Municipalities then combine all of the assessed values for all properties within their jurisdiction to determine how much the tax rate should be for the year in question. It is possible for the town or city to revalue its tax rate every year in order to gather the revenues they require to run the municipality. This means that while assessments do not typically change on a yearly basis, tax rates could.

It is only in cases where the city or town’s assessed values are deemed to be outdated that they will reassess the properties in the jurisdiction. This happens as dramatic inequities arise between one property and the next. It would require a sufficient reason to spend the money on conducting a new assessment of all properties within the municipality. There are states which have standard regulations that each home must be reassessed on an individual basis whenever it becomes sold or transferred. It is also true that rarely will the assessed values versus the appraised values for a given property be precisely the same dollar amount. This is because while assessed values are not impacted by market activity in a certain time period, the appraised values will inevitably be influenced by them due to actual market activity of homes selling in the area.