It has been an interesting time assisting buyers and sellers with real estate transactions in this constantly changing lending and real estate environment we are in right now. Although “Phoenix Arizona” (and all its surrounding suburb cities) is still one of the fastest growing cities in the nation, we are considered to be in what the banks call an overall “declining market”. Along with that market description comes appraisal challenges. I will not say that I am appraisal expert because I am not a licensed Phoenix appraiser, and even with licensed appraisers, there is still so much left to each appraisers “personal opinion” in my view. They may say otherwise, but that has been my experience. Anyway, the declining market has caused many lending institutions to become very conservative with their Phoenix appraisals. They are automatically deducting a certain percentage off the top of the appraised value an appraiser in Phoenix submits to them. I have seen and heard the number 8% taken off the value more than once now and that then becomes the new appraised value the bank will lend on.

Needless to say, this Phoenix appraisal has caused many challenges and killed more than one transaction. I have found that the big, national chain banks are by far the most conservative. We had this appraised value problem on the most recent home I sold in Scottsdale. Even though we had eight or nine good comps justifying the value that we needed, the bank disagreed and would not budge on their appraisal. We were off the mark by about the 8% they deducted for “declining markets”.

We were able to resolve the problem and make the deal work by finding a different lender that was not as conservative as the “big bank” the buyer had initially planned to use. So if you run into this problem, or think there is going to be any challenge finding the comps needed to justify the appraised value in Phoenix you need, the key is going to be the lender that will be funding the deal. You need to find the more “independent” guys out there that have a little more control, flexibility and say so when it comes to the “appraised value”.