111 Summer Hill in Fairview Just Sold

We’ve just closed on another Fairview home located in Lovejoy ISD and right across the street from the original Lovejoy Elementary School. It’s also just a couple of minutes from 3 million SF of retail, dining, and entertainment which is one of the nice things about living in Fairview.

111 Summer Hill Lane is about 3,661 SF with a large detached building, pool, and spa and the home is on 1.8 acres. The home was listed at $725K. If you’d like to see more of the property, here’s the LINK

The Story Behind the Story

Many people think “the deal is done” after the buyer and seller have agreed on pricing, the property inspection and request for repairs have been negotiated, and the financing has been approved by the lender for the buyer. But the biggest hurdle of all comes near the end when the home is getting ready to close. The home has to appraise.

If the home doesn’t meet the appraisal price, one of four things can happen …

 

  1. The seller can lower the price to meet the appraisal price

  2. The buyer can raise the offering price to meet the appraisal price

  3. The buyer and seller can meet somewhere between the contract price and the appraisal price or

  4. The buyer can terminate the contract and they will almost always get their earnest money back.

If number four happens, all the work done by the buyer, seller, both agents, lender, title company, etc is all for naught. The appraisal is completely out of our control.

Most of the time we don’t know the appraiser and truth be told, most of the time they have little to no experience in appraising homes in a niche area like Fairview and Lucas. Just like agents, if you really don’t work an area a lot you can’t really know it.

 

So what can the listing agent do when an appraisal comes in so low that everyone is ready to punt the deal? A good agent will work to keep the deal together, and Sean Elliott, the co-listing agent is a good agent!

  • The agent can first try to convince the appraiser they missed it on pricing by showing comparables that are more in line with the features of the subject property. This rarely works because appraisers don’t like to be second guessed … even if the agent can make a solid case.

  • If that doesn’t work, and everyone involved (including the buyer and buyer agent) thinks it was a poor appraisal, the buyer can change lenders. By the way, when this happens, you KNOW it was a bad appraisal because the buyer is basically agreeing to pay more for the home. By changing lenders, a new appraisal can be ordered from a different appraiser. That’s what happened in this case.

The first appraisal was so low, there was no way to bring the buyer and seller together, however the second appraisal came in at very near the contract price so the buyer and seller split the difference between the new appraisal and the contract price and the property closed.

There are good appraisers and there are poor appraisers just like there are good agents and poor agents. All agents on both sides can do is cross their fingers and hope they aren’t going to end up with a poor appraiser.