The appraisal is ordered by your lender and usually take a week or two to be completed and turned in to the lender’s underwriting department.  Remember, we have a timeline on the appraisal contingency to be mindful of.  If we don’t have the appraisal back before that appraisal contingency is up, then we cannot use the appraisal as a reason for not buying the house so it is a very important date to hit.  The conflict that we often have with lenders is that they want to order an appraisal right away to complete binding on a contract so that they can get it back in time to meet our appraisal contingency.  The problem we have with that is that an appraisal usually costs the buyer somewhere in the $400 range whether we buy the house or not, and if something is discovered in the inspection that causes the buyer to want to terminate the contract, but he appraisal has already been completed…the buyer is now out an additional $400 on top of the their inspection fees.  For this reason, we advise our clients to order their inspection right away and ask the lender to hold off on ordering the appraisal until the buyer is confident that the home inspection will not blow the deal up.

Problems can arise if the inspections turn something up that requires additional inspections or estimates, and if it is not possible to schedule the inspection until several days into the due diligence period, the appraisal timelines become a worry for the lender and everyone else.  This is a situation that your agent will be skilled in handling and will be keeping an eye on and advising you on throughout the process and if that appraisal deadline becomes an issue, the buyer may decide to go ahead and order it, or ask the seller for extension on the appraisal contingency.

In the perfect scenario, the inspection goes well and repairs or concerns with the property are negotiated quickly with the seller and upon executing the inspection amendment, we give the lender the green light to order the appraisal with time to spare.