SoFla homebuyers increasingly paying above appraisal

Joy Fischer and Ryan Paton
Joy Fischer and Ryan Paton

As prices soar and land availability dwindles, home appraisal in South Florida these days doesn’t quite mean what it once did, the Sun-Sentinel reported. Some buyers are more willing now to pay above the appraised value because they say they have limited options: either pay the extra money or lose out to another prospective buyer. If they choose the latter, it’s back to the drawing board.

“You’d have to start the process all over again — the hunting, the multiple offers,” Joy Fischer, an agent with Coldwell Banker, told the Sun-Sentinel. “It would be hard to find another house.”

Jim Flood, a regional manager at Supreme Lending in Plantation, said roughly eight of 10 appraisals in the region equal or exceed the sales price that was agreed upon. If the appraised value is low, some sellers refuse to renegotiate the price down because there might be investors paying cash, in which case no appraisal is necessary.

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Buyers tend to agree to paying above the appraisal, with the intent to put down 20 percent and live in the home for several years.

“If they’re going to be in it for the long run, who cares what values do in the short term?” Ryan Paton, president of Capitol Lending Group in Fort Lauderdale, told the publication. [Sun-Sentinel]Mark Maurer