Conference 7.286::digital

    Not sure where you live(housing market) however I relocated from
     the Phila. area to Washington market two years ago, and found Home
    equity to be right on the money, their apprasial was only 4k off
    the mark from what i sold it for, try the appeal process I have
    heard that this can work, also try a different appraiser than
    the ones they supplied, it could be your market is depressed.
    

    Stan,
    
    It is beginning to appear as if the area around greater Maynard has a
    depressed housing market.  My home has been appraised (a four week
    process so far) and while I've not been told what I'll be offered, I
    have been told that all three of the appraisals are for less that I
    paid for my home!  I'm not sure what I'm going to do about the whole
    situation.
    
    	Dan Kusnetzky

  See also 897.1. The group I work for is moving to another site 25 miles away
and several people have had a bad experience with the "DEC will buy your house"
phase of relo. I have heard that the third party pays less then the market
value for a house because they must make a profit on the sale of the house and
can't afford to have a large inventory of unsold houses on the market. 
  I'm not a homeowner, but when the group relo plan was presented, I thought,
"Gee, DEC is generous. If you don't want to hold onto your house for months
while trying to sell it, DEC will buy it." The first thing I realized is that
DEC doesn't buy houses. Then I realized that if you were to offer your house
for public sale at what the third party would pay for it, you would probably
sell it almost as quickly as if the third party bought it.

    
    The appraisers on Home Equity's list will always lowball the price, 
    because if they come in high too mmany times, they get dropped 
    from the list. You are allowed to select an appraiser
    not on the list if he meets certain requirements. Selecting an 
    appraiser on Home Equity's list is like selecting a doctor 
    who is paid by the bacteria.
    
    Appeals are usually unsuccessful because Home Equity just sends 
    your appeal back to the appraiser, who will be very reluctant
    to admit having made a mistake, and certainly will not change
    anything which is judgemental in nature.  
    
    

    Home Equity is supposed to offer fair market value for your property.
    If you can prove they are coming in under fair market value, you may
    have a case, otherwise your SOL. If you live in an area where the 
    prices of condos are falling due to saturation, then your going to have
    to bite the proverbial bullet and come up with the difference. 
    If there are no severe time constraints, you will be better off selling
    yourself, after all, Home Equity has a lot more time to sell than you
    do.

    If you should have to borrow to pay off the condo, try to do it
    privately because when it comes time to buy at your new location that
    debt will work against you, and if there is no written record, that
    debt will be invisible to the new lending institution.

    This is all an education in being paranoid when dealing with real
    estate brokers, only in rare cases are they out to help _you_.

    I just sold my house in Littleton, Mass. using Merrill Lynch.  The
    three appraisals I got were 147K, 157K, and 169K, making Merrill
    Lynch's offer be 157.67K.  Merrill Lynch's own real-estate agent came
    up with 171K.

    My real-estate agent said she could get 179.9K.  In fact, when the
    first offer was for 175K, I took it. The low appraisals had me worried.
    Also, the interest on that amount comes to about $1200/month, which
    encourages a speedy sale.

    I did get the buyer's offer up to 178K by offering him Merrill Lynch's
    3K rebate.  So I ended up with 179K, the 178K plus the 1K bounty for
    finding a buyer.

    I was not at all impressed with the appraisals, and I strongly suspect
    that some of the earlier notes are correct concerning the appraisers
    coming in with low numbers to ensure they keep getting the appraisal
    business.

    I've relocated three times and have never been really thrilled with
    third party offers, but considering the alternatives, I always accepted
    them.  The basic problem is that most folks have a badly inflated idea
    of what their house is worth.  The truth hurts.
    
    I appealed twice and it is a useless exercise.  It you don't like the
    offer, try to sell it yourself.  The corporation still picks up all the
    fees, etc.
    
    Don't fall in the trap of thinking that the third-party firm is
    arbitrarily undercutting the offer just to insure their profitability.
    They get about 20% of the appraised value right off the top as a
    direct payment from Digital.  A few years ago it was 19.8%, so I'm
    assuming it's a little higher now.

    Sure, here comes the paranoia .....   
    	Figures are low so there must be a conspriracy to low-ball 
    	any offer.
    
    When I relocated from Framingham in '86, the appraisals came in
    under what our original realtor suggested as a price for the house.
    It was only a little low, so we took it so we didn't have to worry
    about whether it sold or not.
    
    Guess what!  The house took several months to sell and when it did
    it was lower than the HomeEquity price. So I can state that, in
    at least one instance, employees can come out ahead even if the
    first reaction is "That low! Must be a conspiracy!"
    
    	/Marvin
    

    Before we left New Hampshire we tried for 4 months to sell our cape in
    New Ipswich for $145,000.  We were offered $131,250 by homequity and
    TOOK it!  It took Digital 7 more months to sell the house.  Personally
    I think it's still a great deal.  It's not DEC's fault (hmmm...this may
    be arguable) that a particular housing market is flat.  I watched VTX
    and saw my house listed for EXACTLY what I was paid ($131,250) for the
    seven months.  I think after awhile, someone just approaches the local
    real estate agent (Norwood in this case) and says 'Look, that house has
    been on the market for 9 months...I'll give you $120,000."  The
    homequity (or Merrill Lynch) and DEC folks do some figuring and decide
    that it's in everyone's best interest to just let it go rather than
    having it sit empty and making payments...
    
    Look at it this way.  You have to move on to a new job.  Digital
    ENCOURAGES you to sell the home on your own.  Then, if you can't sell
    it, they arrive at a reasonable figure from two or three different
    appraisers that *you* choose, and offer what they think they can sell
    it for in 120 days.  Then you CASH OUT!  Remember, you get the full
    value of the house...with NO LOSS in real estate commission!  Talk
    about a way to build equity!  Now, I'm sure that some folks end up
    getting less that what they paid for or what they think they're
    entitled...so...try to sell it yourself!  It's hard to convince anyone
    that your house is worth more when you have had a for sale sign out for
    four months (as we did) and no takers...
    
    It's a good program.... (I've used it twice, with my own share of
    glitches and bad feelings...)  but consider the alternative.
    
    If you want to worry about something...have your RADON checked!
    
    Whew...I need to get some more coffee.....
    

    I guess the home purchase program is subject to the same problems as
    computers....
    
    after all, they're both run by humans!
    
    (Aren't appraisers human....?)

I relocated from Colorado Springs to NH about 4.5 years ago and all
3 Home Equity appraisals came in at exactly 93K.  We had paid 86,900
for our house 18 months previously.  The house sat on the market for
a long time and was finally sold at LESS than we paid for it.  I did
think the 93K was low considering the builder was now charging about
98K for that model.  All things considered, though, I think we did
quite well.  I couldn't come close to making that on the house
we now own in the Springs.  :-(.

    One final comment, .o.......I just reread your note and noticed you
    have a condo!  Given what I've heard about the sad state of the condo
    market in Mass these days, you're lucky you got any offer.
    
    Be glad you aren't trying to get out of a house in the "oil patch"
    where you might have to take half of what you paid ten years ago, if
    you can get it!
    

    A condo! Yoweee...! I missed that one too!  
    
    When we were trying to sell our NH house, the real estate agent said
    'yeah, there was potential offer on it, but I didn't even write it
    up.....they guy was trying to sell a condo in Nashua and there are a
    THOUSAND condos in Nashua right now and none of 'em are moving.'
    
    

    If you think the price is too low, try to find out what comparable
    condos have been selling for recently in your area.  A friendly
    broker can help or you can try your town hall.  The information on
    comparables will either help with an appeal or show you that
    the H-E offer is reasonable given the current market.     
    
    Gene

    To add my 2 cents, when I left Colo Springs in March of this year, Home
    Equity offered me (based on *my* appraisers) $7,000 LESS than my
    mortgage balance!  Not $7k less than what I paid, but $7k less than what
    I owed on the original mortgage!!! I'll be d*mned if I was gonna try
    and come up with $7k just to close out! I HAD to sell it myself, which
    I quickly did on a simple assumption using the $3k buyer incentive
    credit, and the $1k bonus to me for selling it myself.  All my realtor
    expenses were covered, so all in all it was a good move, BUT, the offer
    was DISASTEROUS!!
    
    
    Good luck!
    
    Steve

I was involved in an offer with HE and recivede a suprisingly low offer for
my property.  When I asked for the appraisals was I suprised.  They were:
		$80,000		(This was a while ago)
		$74,000
		$32,000		(I had paid $55,000)

and Home Equity takes the average for the offer.

I challanged and eventually the low ball raised to $67,000 which made a Biiigggg
difference.

I understand in most cases it doesn't pay to challange, but if you can prove
they used one or more Turkey's to do their work (in my case the person
was in a hurry to do the appraisal to get to an appointment to show
another house) you can come out  way ahead.

The most wonderful PS to this was the "turkey" was the one given the contract
to sell the house and he finally sold it for $66,000 with a $6,000 rebate
in one day on the market in Northern NH (I returned and met the new owners to
tell them about the orchard we put in and other stuff).

					Bill

    The way to win is to do your homework. Appraisers have reputations just
    like other businessmen and women. You can ask for the list of qualified
    appriasers and select three from the list. Local brokers will know who
    usually comes in high, who comes in low, and who to NEVER use.
    
    As a Real Estate Broker I get inquirys all the time about my opinion
    of appraisers. I have to be very careful to qualify my opinions as
    my personal opinion, but I do answer. ( Some Brokers won't )
    
    I am in Augusta, Maine so I won't be of much help to many of you, but
    ask around, the Brokers in your area know who's crazy!
    

    I heard many war stories about HE when I was in Colorado Springs.
    Seems HE was specifically looking for the bad appraisers and
    low balling everyone.
    
    I am very wary of appraisers in general.  I currently live in Seattle
    which is one of the hotest RE markets in the country now.  The RE agent
    I purchased my house from quoted me a figure $20,000 (20%) higher to sell
    my house than what the appraisers have given me to refinance.
    I've looked at the houses locally that are selling and I'm convinced
    the agent is estimating a low value.
    
    If your going to move, only use HE if you have no other alternative.
    

re .8

>    Sure, here comes the paranoia .....   
>    	Figures are low so there must be a conspiracy to low-ball 
>    	any offer.


FACTS:  
	I recently relocated with HE and the 2 appraisals (from HE's list of 
	acceptable appraisers) came in 14.5% and 18.2% below the price that I 
	paid for it 2 years ago.  *Three days* after receiving these offers, I 
	sold the condo through a local realtor for just a 5% loss.

COMMENTS:	Now I certainly agree that the HE/ML companies are there to 
		expedite the process, there are loads of condos in inventory 
		right now, and in my case the 'system' worked in that the 
		ridiculously low offer forced me to find a buyer willing to 
		pay a higher price on my own, but *please* don't try to tell 
		me that these appraisers are giving true market value and 
		are not "low-balling" the offers!  The only condos in that 
		development that were sold recently in the price range 
		that HE's appraisers were offering were those that were 
		bought out by either HE or ML.  Any condos that were sold 
		*without* HE/ML's "assistance" brought in a similarly priced 
		market value as the final price we got through our realtor.

						Stan

PS  Furthermore, when it came time for our buyer's bank to send over an 
appraiser, guess who they picked?  One of the 2 original appraisers!  We 
protested that this was conflict of interest since he had done the appraisal 
already for HE.  The bank agreed with us and when our realtor called him to 
explain the situation, he was (according to the realtor) blubbering all over 
himself, volunteering to take himself out of the process.  Apparently, he can 
be severely reprimanded for abusing the system (getting paid twice from 
different sources for the same job!).  Let's hope so!!!  Good enough for him... 
He now has a marred, unethical image in at least one large Central Mass Realty 
Co's eyes, and possibly more trouble than he bargained for!  So, here is one 
example of a "HE-chosen" appraiser who was neither ethical nor accurate/fair 
in his business dealings with us.

BTW, the NEW appraiser that was chosen by the buyer's bank had no problem with 
the higher selling price of the home.

    So what's wrong with the appraiser managing to get paid twice for the
    same appraisal job?  It sounds perfectly reasonable to me. I am far
    more concerned with the accuracy of the appraisal than the number of
    times the appraiser gets paid for it.
    
    (Please don't tell me it's "unethical".  I want to know WHY it is
    considered unethical.)

Re .20: It's wrong for the same reason that it would be wrong for a legal
appeal to be heard by the same judge who made the decision being appealed.
The judge would have a personal interest in maintaining the correctness
of his or her original decision.

That doesn't mean that the judge's original decision was wrong or unfair 
(just as the appraiser's decision may or may not have been "accurate"). It 
just means that a fair process requires an objective "second look," because
the legitimate interests of an outside party (the loser in the previous
lawsuit or the homeowner who needs an appraisal above a certain amount
for the sale to be approved) conflict with the understandable personal
interests of the original decision maker.

This principle would also mean that anyone with strong personal or
business ties to the original decision maker should not be rendering
the second decision. For instance, it would be wrong for the wife or
business partner of the original appraiser to make the second appraisal.

    It's all in who pays the appraiser. I am also a real estate broker. I
    have had appraisers tell me that I will always like their work. The
    banker who does the loan is paid on commision, just like I am. He hires
    the apprasier. If the deal falls thru due to the appraisal the banker
    loses his commision. Appraisers who come in low too often for the bank
    find that they aren't working much. The Home Equity situation is the
    reverse. it is home equity who is paying the bill. Stands to reason
    that if the appraiser comes in high too often and Home Equity takes
    losses, would also be unemployed.
    
    You can help your self a bit by having a fee appraisal done before you
    call Home equity. Provide a copy of the appraisal and it's comps to
    each of Home equity's apprisers.  They may not use them, but my
    experience is that most of them are lazy, and that with the work done
    and in hand they will use it...
    
    dick

    Just got back from T-day and saw the activity.
    
    Thanks to .21 and .22 for giving the reasons for disallowing
    the "double-dipping" that certain appraisers might attempt to do.
    
    Just a few followup comments:
    
    1)  Regarding doing a prelim appraisal before HE's appraisers come
    over.  We actually did do that but from the outcome, it did not
    appear that they took that into account (and certainly HE did not
    want to hear it!).  Also the bank's appraiser looked at us kind of 
    funny and chuckled when we handed him a copy of the original prelim 
    appraisals from our realtor.  I suppose it can't hurt to try though.
    
    2)  The moral of the whole story, I guess, is:  If you ever get
    low-balled by HE's appraisers and then succeed in finding a buyer
    on your own, *ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS* ask *WHO* the buyer's bank is 
    choosing for an appraiser, just in case...  If you want to be even 
    more proactive, I would strongly suggest picking AT LEAST one 
    (maybe both) appraisers from outside of the local area - since the 
    bank will generally choose the home-grown local appraisers.
    
    						Stan

    BTW, if anyone wants to know who the Central Mass appraiser is who 
    I described in .19, feel free to call me so you can avoid the same
    unnecessary grief that he put us through.
    
    					Stan

    Appraisal are only a best guess about the process of selling a home.
    You never know what a house will sell for until you have a willing
    buyer.  In some markets, that's what you pray for!  When I moved
    to Colorado Springs with DEC in 1984, I started hearing war stories
    about HE.  Also, I heard that HE doesn't loose money on a bad deal,
    DEC does.  HE is working as an commission agent for DEC, the company
    takes to risk and pays the expenses of maintaining the house.  I also
    heard that profit HE makes over purchase price goes to HE.  It is 
    therefore in HE's interest to low-ball you.  The reason HE gets DEC's
    business is that they are very good at costing the company the lowest
    out of pocket expense, i.e. the house is priced to stay on the market
    less than 90 days.
    
    I some markets that "90 day" rule causes the appraiser to severely
    low-ball the appraisal becuase HE asks them to give a value that
    would assure a 90 day sell.  Under those rules, the appraiser is 
    neither objective or independent, especially in the eyes of the 
    homeowner.  
    
    One of my co-workers in Colorado Springs when transfering out,
    took a beating.  When I asked him, he said the price was consistent
    with local market conditions.  In Colorado Springs, you take what
    you can and run like h*ll.
      
    	I unfortunately still own a home in the town and anticipate 
    the day I can unload it.  I couldn't ask for relo since at the
    time, I had it rented out.  Unfortunatly, I've had to accept a 
    compromise and continue rent it.  If I could afford to take
    the gamble, it would go on the market and be sold.  Like most DEC 
    employes, I cannot afford to make two house payments.  The silver
    lining is that I live in an area where the prices are now escalating 
    at 40+% per year.   
    
    HE is not objective, but sometimes it's the only game in town!
    But for god sakes, don't ever trust real estate people or appraisers
    when moving into a new area.  I know many of my coworkers in Colorado
    that are *stuck*.
    

    re : .25
    
    You're making generalizations that do not hold true across the board. 
    All Real Estate People are not liars, as your .25 title indicates -
    some of us have had very good luck with real estate people (and even
    have family that do that for a living :-))
    
    If you're unhappy fine, but given the recent problems (at least in
    other notesfiles) about information leaking from notesfiles to the
    public, and then someone raising hell because "...DEC is saying <insert
    favorite non-DEC business here> is no good..."  (not you, but DEC...),
    I might suggest that you refrain from making such generalizations in
    the future.
    
    Todd

    re; 25
    
    Some DEC employees are also real estate agents.  You may just have
    screwed up your present/next job within DEC!

    
    
>    Some DEC employees are also real estate agents.  You may just have
>    screwed up your present/next job within DEC!
    
    I have a job I like!  I personally want to work for managers 
    who are focus'd on their jobs, not RE.