I paid to have an appraisal done on my house by this company. Ryan was the appraiser who came out to the house to do the appraisal. I was present during the 12 minutes or so he spent gathering up all of details on the inside and outside of the house. He asked no questions, said he would have it ready in a couple days. A full week later, I received a copy of the appraisal and I couldn't believe what a terrible job Ryan had done. From reading their website, I expected a professional appraisal done. What I got was an appraisal that was not accurate, missed many details about the house, research was sloppy or not done properly, etc...
My $500 appraisal from the Compass Real Estate Group included the following errors and omissions: Didn't include 3 sales that occurred 30 days prior all within .15 miles, one of the houses was 4 doors down from mine. All recent sales were same style/size as my house. They decided to use comparable sales that were between .33-.85 miles away and were all sold between 6-11 months ago even though the report says 9 sales occurred in the previous 90 days. One of them used was a foreclosure sold 10 months ago. Wrong original build date byby 5 years. Report showing age of house was 56 years old and kitchen and bathrooms were all original (56 years old). That is not possible as my house was totally rebuilt in 2000 after it burned down in a fire, so everything was 17 years or newer. Windows shown as original aluminum, all windows were replaced when rebuilt with milgard vinyl windows. The part of the report which includes county data which states that the effective build date was 1999, but they were so sloppy they missed that critical fact. Other inaccurate information: Driveway stated as 4 car capacity, but I have a large circular driveway that can fit minimum of 8 cars on it. They also got the lot size wrong by 600 square feet. I could go on and on.
I contacted the company to let them know that they needed to update their appraisal with actual specs of my house and update to include the recent comps that were available...I received no call back. After I spoke with the lender, and gave them the true facts they were not happy and very apologetic and embarrassed that they required me to use this shoddy outfit and they were floored when they refused to update any of the details...rather suggested that if I wanted the appraisal updated that I order another one from them! Well they did do one thing right, that was purchase 'errors and omissions insurance' which I plan on filing a claim against to get my money back. There are so many competent, qualified, experienced RE appraisers out there, why risk receiving an appraisal that is basically for another house as they are too lazy to do the proper research or even call a customer back...bad form. Hopefully at least the insurance policy info is correct in the report, BUYER BEWARE. read more