Hire an Appraiser to Help Choose Home Renovations: Appraisal Institute

Chicago, IL – March 10, 2020 (PRNewswire) The Appraisal Institute, the nation’s largest professional association of real estate appraisers, today encouraged homeowners to choose their renovations wisely to maximize potential return on investment. 

“Making the right upgrades may greatly increase the homeowner’s chance of a timely sale, not to mention maximizing their profit,” said Appraisal Institute President Jefferson L. Sherman, MAI, AI-GRS. “The right upgrades also can drive up surrounding property values, improving the value of homes across a neighborhood.”

Sherman shared that some home improvements may be “over-improvements,” which can seriously detract from the value of a home, especially if the projects go above and beyond community norms.

“Real estate appraisers have the local market knowledge required to gauge how an improvement may affect a home’s value,” Sherman said. “While they can’t make guarantees, appraisers can use their expertise and experience to help homeowners make wise decisions about which improvement projects to take on.”

According to Remodeling magazine’s most recent Cost vs. Value report, the projects with the highest expected return on investment are manufactured stone veneer, garage door replacement and minor kitchen remodel. Other projects with potential payoffs, according to the report, are siding replacement, window replacement and deck addition.

Sherman advised homeowners upgrading elements of their home to ensure that their property meets community standards, reflects neighborhood norms and complies with local housing codes.

He also noted that homeowners may find it best to hold off on big renovations if they’re unsure how long they will be in their home. “The longer a homeowner stays in a property, the greater the opportunity for a return on investment,” Sherman said.

By purchasing an energy-efficient product or renewable energy system for a home, the owner may be eligible for a federal tax credit based on EPA-established guidelines. (See the complete list of eligible products, including program expiration dates.)

Unlike real estate agents or brokers, appraisers have the expertise to perform a feasibility study, in which an appraiser analyzes a property, weighs the cost of rehabilitation and provides an estimate of the property’s value both before and after the improvement. Qualified and competent appraisers, such as Designated Members of the Appraisal Institute, provide homeowners with the confidence to make necessary remodeling and renovation decisions that could be smart choices financially.

Stay connected with the latest news from the Appraisal Institute on FacebookTwitterLinkedInYouTube and our blog, Opinions of Value.

The Appraisal Institute is a global professional association of real estate appraisers, with over 17,000 professionals in almost 50 countries throughout the world. Its mission is to advance professionalism and ethics, global standards, methodologies, and practices through the professional development of property economics worldwide. Organized in 1932, the Appraisal Institute advocates equal opportunity and nondiscrimination in the appraisal profession and conducts its activities in accordance with applicable federal, state and local laws. Individuals of the Appraisal Institute benefit from an array of professional education and advocacy programs, and may hold the prestigious MAI, SRPA, SRA, AI-GRS and AI-RRS designations. Learn more at www.appraisalinstitute.org.

Quicken Loans Study: Less Than Half a Percent Difference Between Owner and Appraiser Opinions of Home Values

– Quicken Loans’ National HPPI shows appraised values 0.45% lower than homeowners estimated in December

– Home values rose 0.79% nationally in December, and posted a 5.15% year-over-year increase, according to the Quicken Loans HVI

Detroit, MI – Jan. 8, 2019 (PRNewswire) The year ended with owner and appraiser perceptions of home values slightly moving in different directions, although the difference remains less than half a percent nationally. Appraisal values were an average of 0.45 percent lower than homeowners expected in December, according to the National Quicken Loans Home Price Perception Index (HPPI). This is compared to November, when there was just a 0.36 difference between the two data points.

Quicken Loans Logo

Despite the dip in perception, appraisal values themselves rose in December at a faster pace than they did in November. The National Quicken Loans Home Value Index (HVI) reported a 0.79 percent monthly increase in the average appraisal value. The national index also showed the average appraisal jumped 5.15 percent year-over-year.

Home Price Perception Index (HPPI)

The HPPI – Quicken Loans’ exclusive measure of homeowners’ opinion of home values – continued to show a small difference between owners’ and appraisers’ opinions on a national level, but the appraisals in the vast majority of metro areas were higher than the owner expected in December. Homeowners in Boston, for example, saw appraisals coming back an average of 2.98 percent higher than what the homeowners expected. Based on the area’s median home value, that is an average of about $15,000 in extra equity the owners don’t realize they had.

“Many consumers don’t think about their home’s value until they start thinking about selling it. They may not be watching their local housing market as closely as appraisers who are reviewing home sales every day – leading the owners to incorrectly estimate their home’s value,” said Bill Banfield, Quicken Loans Executive Vice President of Capital Markets. “The fact of the matter is that the there are many ways a homeowner can make their equity can work for them if they have a realistic estimate of their home’s value. Tapping into home equity to consolidate high-interest debt, or make home improvements are very popular options right now.”

Home Value Index (HVI)

The Quicken Loans HVI, the only measure of home value change based exclusively on appraisal data, reported increasingly rising appraisal values across the country. The National HVI showed that home values rose steadily from November to December, increasing 0.79 percent. The annual growth is even stronger, with the average appraisal rising 5.15 percent over last year’s level. Another sign of the housing market’s health is that all four regions measured by the study reported modest growth on both the monthly and annual measures. The appraisal values ranged from 4.41 percent annual growth in the Northeast to a 5.98 percent year-over-year increase in the West.

“Any consumer who has read recent news about the housing market and has the impression that it is slowing to a halt should see that the HVI proves that this could not be farther from the truth,” said Banfield. “Home value growth is now at a more normal, sustainable clip – keeping pace with inflation and wage growth more than we have seen in the past few years.”

Chart

* A positive value represents appraiser opinions that are higher than homeowner perceptions. A negative value represents appraiser opinions that are lower than homeowner perceptions.

Chart

*A positive value represents appraiser opinions that are higher than homeowner perceptions. A negative value represents appraiser opinions that are lower than homeowner perceptions.

Chart

*A positive value represents appraiser opinions that are higher than homeowner perceptions. A negative value represents appraiser opinions that are lower than homeowner perceptions.

About the HPPI & HVI

The Quicken Loans HPPI represents the difference between appraisers’ and homeowners’ opinions of home values. The index compares the estimate that the homeowner supplies on a refinance mortgage application to the appraisal that is performed later in the mortgage process. This is an unprecedented report that gives a never-before-seen analysis of how homeowners are viewing the housing market. The HPPI national composite is determined by analyzing appraisal and homeowner estimates throughout the entire country, including data points from both inside and outside the metro areas specifically called out in the above report.

The Quicken Loans HVI is the only view of home value trends based solely on appraisal data from home purchases and mortgage refinances. This produces a wide data set and is focused on appraisals, one of the most important pieces of information to the mortgage process.

The HPPI and HVI are released on the second Tuesday of every month. Both of the reports are created with Quicken Loans’ propriety mortgage data from the 50-state lenders’ mortgage activity across all 3,000+ counties. The indexes are examined nationally, in four geographic regions and the HPPI is reported for 27 major metropolitan areas. All indexes, along with downloadable tables and graphs can be found at QuickenLoans.com/Indexes.

About Quicken Loans

Detroit-based Quicken Loans Inc. is the nation’s largest home mortgage lender. The company closed nearly half a trillion dollars of mortgage volume across all 50 states from 2013 through 2018. Quicken Loans moved its headquarters to downtown Detroit in 2010. Today, Quicken Loans and its Family of Companies employ more than 17,000 full-time team members in Detroit’s urban core. The company generates loan production from web centers located in Detroit, Cleveland and Phoenix. Quicken Loans also operates a centralized loan processing facility in Detroit, as well as its San Diego-based One Reverse Mortgage unit. Quicken Loans ranked highest in the country for customer satisfaction for primary mortgage origination by J.D. Power for the past nine consecutive years, 2010 – 2018, and also ranked highest in the country for customer satisfaction among all mortgage servicers the past five consecutive years, 2014 – 2018.

Quicken Loans was once again named to FORTUNE magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” list in 2018 and has been included in the magazine’s top 1/3rd of companies named to the list for the past 15 consecutive years. In addition, Essence Magazine named Quicken Loans “#1 Place to Work in the Country for African Americans.”



NAR Window to the Law: Working with Appraisers

On this month’s Window to the Law we learn from a discussion on the best practices for working with appraisers and the kind of communications that real estate professionals can have with appraisers.