Not accepting offers at asking price should be illegal

[omachi]

It was in a market a long long time ago and far far away from the here and now, and was to prevent the seller (me) from accepting an early low ball offer.  There are obviously other ways to avoid that error, and it's obviously not a problem in today's market.

Makes sense, and probably a rather good use of the money it took to get the appraisal. Being able to say that you know the value according to at least one appraiser sounds like a reasonable bargaining point when the market isn't great for sellers.

[Michael in ABQ]

As a parenthetical comment, I've often wondered why it isn't more common practice for the sellers to get an appraisal and then use the appraised value as the list price.  Kinda like I've done with cars - look it up on KBB and then list it for that price.  Perhaps with some adjustments for how desperate one is as a seller, or if there are some things that the appraisal doesn't include (a new school being built nearby next year or something like that).

I'm sure there are reasons, but it's something I've thought of doing as a seller myself before for various reasons.

Considering a typical appraisal might be $400-500 it seems like a worthwhile investment when you're about to pay a realtor thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. I used to be a commercial real estate appraiser and was active in a forum with mostly residential appraisers and the anecdotal evidence was very few buyers were will to spend a few hundred dollars for an unbiased opinion.

My guess is that the thousands of dollars a realtors 6% commissions represents isn't "real" money they have to pay out. It just comes out of the proceeds of the sale. Whereas writing a checking for ~$400 is an actual cost.

[Aegishjalmur]

As a parenthetical comment, I've often wondered why it isn't more common practice for the sellers to get an appraisal and then use the appraised value as the list price.  Kinda like I've done with cars - look it up on KBB and then list it for that price.  Perhaps with some adjustments for how desperate one is as a seller, or if there are some things that the appraisal doesn't include (a new school being built nearby next year or something like that).

I'm sure there are reasons, but it's something I've thought of doing as a seller myself before for various reasons.

Considering a typical appraisal might be $400-500 it seems like a worthwhile investment when you're about to pay a realtor thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. I used to be a commercial real estate appraiser and was active in a forum with mostly residential appraisers and the anecdotal evidence was very few buyers were will to spend a few hundred dollars for an unbiased opinion.

My guess is that the thousands of dollars a realtors 6% commissions represents isn't "real" money they have to pay out. It just comes out of the proceeds of the sale. Whereas writing a checking for ~$400 is an actual cost.

I don't see much point for the seller getting one done. When the purchaser applies for a mortgage, all the appraiser does is state the value is supported. 95% of all the purchase appraisals I reviewed had the value as equal to the sales price, rounded up to nearest hundred dollars. 4.99% showed less, and the rest showed a higher value. You can't convince me that all the houses were priced at their exact worth, the appraiser is only stating it's supported.

[Michael in ABQ]

As a parenthetical comment, I've often wondered why it isn't more common practice for the sellers to get an appraisal and then use the appraised value as the list price.  Kinda like I've done with cars - look it up on KBB and then list it for that price.  Perhaps with some adjustments for how desperate one is as a seller, or if there are some things that the appraisal doesn't include (a new school being built nearby next year or something like that).

I'm sure there are reasons, but it's something I've thought of doing as a seller myself before for various reasons.

Considering a typical appraisal might be $400-500 it seems like a worthwhile investment when you're about to pay a realtor thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. I used to be a commercial real estate appraiser and was active in a forum with mostly residential appraisers and the anecdotal evidence was very few buyers were will to spend a few hundred dollars for an unbiased opinion.

My guess is that the thousands of dollars a realtors 6% commissions represents isn't "real" money they have to pay out. It just comes out of the proceeds of the sale. Whereas writing a checking for ~$400 is an actual cost.

I don't see much point for the seller getting one done. When the purchaser applies for a mortgage, all the appraiser does is state the value is supported. 95% of all the purchase appraisals I reviewed had the value as equal to the sales price, rounded up to nearest hundred dollars. 4.99% showed less, and the rest showed a higher value. You can't convince me that all the houses were priced at their exact worth, the appraiser is only stating it's supported.

If you have a range of values and the purchase price is in that range, then yes, most appraisers will conclude to that price. I had some appraisals for purchases come in above the purchase price and some come in below. I knew in the case of the latter I would potentially get some push back from the client (usually a lender) or some other party to the transaction. But at the end of the day if my value was supported then that was it. I had some clients that would not disclose the purchase price because they wanted to ensure there was no anchor bias in play. However, with commercial appraisals there's generally a lot wider range of values due to fewer transactions. With suburban homes there may be a dozen sales in the last six months with multiple exact model matches.