Your home appraisal is scheduled and the appraiser will be there in the next few days. So, what should you do to get your house ready?
Probably less than you think.
At this point, your home’s value is largely what it is. You don’t need to spend the next few days frantically deep cleaning, touching up paint, replacing fixtures, planting flowers or trying to make your home look like it’s ready for a magazine shoot.
If you have time to clean or tidy up, great. Go for it. But please don’t stress about making your house perfect for the appraiser.
Appraisers Are Used to Seeing Homes That People Actually Live In
This is something homeowners sometimes forget. Appraisers are professional house viewers. We walk through homes all day, every day, and most of those homes have people living in them.
We see toys on the floor, dishes in the sink, laundry baskets waiting to be folded, unmade beds, half-finished projects and dogs that are extremely excited to meet us.
That’s normal.
An appraisal inspection isn’t a showing or an open house. We’re not walking through your house deciding whether we would personally buy it, and we’re certainly not there to judge your housekeeping.
We’re there to understand the property.
The appraiser is looking at the home’s size, layout, quality, condition, materials, finishes and features. We’re identifying bedrooms and bathrooms, looking at garages, basements and other improvements, noting remodeling and updates, and observing the condition of the home’s major components.
A basket of laundry isn’t going to keep us from doing that.
What Should I Do Before My Home Appraisal?
There are a few things that really are helpful before your appraisal inspection.
Make the house accessible. We generally need to see the entire home. Make sure we can access bedrooms, bathrooms, the basement, garage and other areas of the property. If you have a locked room, detached building, gate or other area that isn’t normally accessible, please have it available if it’s part of the property being appraised.
Tell us about improvements you’ve made. This is much more useful to your appraiser than spending another hour cleaning. If you’ve remodeled the kitchen, replaced the roof, installed a new furnace or air conditioner, finished the basement, added a bathroom, replaced windows or completed other significant improvements, let us know. A simple list with approximate dates is perfect. You don’t need to create anything fancy.
Make pets easy to work around. We enjoy meeting your pets. If your dog doesn’t particularly enjoy meeting strangers, or is likely to make it difficult to inspect certain areas of the house, having them somewhere comfortable and secure is helpful.
Point out things we might not notice. Some improvements are obvious. Others aren’t. New plumbing, electrical work, insulation, mechanical equipment and similar improvements might not be apparent during a walkthrough. Feel free to tell your appraiser about them.
That’s really about it.
Do I Need to Clean My House Before an Appraisal?
You do not need to deep clean your house for an appraisal.
General cleanliness can make it easier to see and understand the condition of a property, so we’re certainly not going to discourage you from cleaning. If you have the time and want to straighten things up, that’s great.
But there is a difference between the condition of your home and the cleanliness of your home.
A worn-out kitchen is still a worn-out kitchen after the countertops have been scrubbed. A recently remodeled kitchen is still a recently remodeled kitchen if there are breakfast dishes in the sink.
Appraisers understand the difference.
If your appraisal is tomorrow and you’re wondering whether you need to stay up until midnight cleaning the house, please don’t do that on our account.
Should I Make Repairs Before the Appraiser Comes?
If you already know about a simple repair that can easily be completed before the appraisal, there’s nothing wrong with taking care of it.
But a few days before your appraisal probably isn’t the time to start a renovation project just because the appraiser is coming.
If something isn’t working or an area of the house is unfinished, don’t try to hide it. Just let the appraiser know what’s going on. Depending on the type and purpose of the appraisal, certain repairs or safety issues may need to be reported or addressed. Our job during the inspection is simply to accurately observe and document the property.
Should I Give the Appraiser Comparable Sales?
If you know about a sale in the neighborhood that you think is particularly relevant, we’re happy to receive the information.
But you don’t need to spend the night before your appraisal searching Zillow and trying to figure out which homes the appraiser should use as comparable sales.
That’s our job.
The same goes for researching neighborhood amenities, schools, shopping or other market information. Researching the neighborhood and analyzing comparable sales are part of the appraisal process.
If there is something unusual about your home or neighborhood that you think we should know, though, please tell us. Good information is always welcome.
The Most Important Thing: Don’t Stress About the Appraisal
If your appraisal inspection is only a few days away, you’ve probably already done most of what you’re reasonably going to do.
Make sure the appraiser can access the areas of the property we need to see. Tell us about improvements we might not know about. Secure any pets that need securing. If you want to straighten up a little, that’s fine too.
Then let us do our job.
We’ve been in thousands of homes. We understand that houses are places where people actually live.
The toys, laundry, breakfast dishes and everyday clutter aren’t what we’re there to appraise.
We’re there to appraise your home.
