Also, I know all the ripping out we did was a bad decision, before anyone starts yelling at me:)

My father owns a construction company and on a rainy day they went over and started doing a lot of the stuff he and I had talked about us wanting done, before we really thought about the fact that there might not be as many bad weather days coming up for them to complete it. Oh and - I have a bad bad habit of underestimating the amount of time it takes to complete stuff like this :)

Am I understanding that you do not currently own the place but are remodeling it?
The primary driver in real estate appraisal is location. In terms of your question, the appraiser cannot value something that is not there: flooring, etc. A promise by the owner that the flooring or whatever will be installed shortly is meaningless. Unless you can deal with a low appraisal, I'd get going on finishing up the basics at least.

You are correct.. We have signed sales contract and signed occupancy agreement, so we started the remodeling so that we are not doing it once we're living there.

Yeah, I imagine finish level of kitchen and bathrooms could factor into comparisons, as could things like wood versus carpet, etc. The overall layout (number of bedrooms, say) and location are big factors. But imagine an appraiser looking at two nearly identical houses, one of which is a "before" (grandma didn't update for 50 years) and one of which is an "after" (just rehabbed throughout) -- you'd certainly expect him to give them two different valuations. I imagine they can appraise your place only as a shell if that's what you show them. If you need a certain target valuation, you may need to consult with somebody (e.g., local realtor) about what portions are most important to achieving that, and get them done asap.

Note: most people who want to remodel do so by scheduling a buffer between when they purchase and when they move in, rather than getting into renovations on a property for which the sale could still fall through for unforeseen reasons (title, a death, etc.).

Does anyone here know if the "finished" basement will still be considered finished if the carpet is up or if we need to worry about getting flooring down there beforehand? We're still undecided on what were going to put down there.

ACM I know this, this home was owned by a company and we are not worried about that aspect whatsoever. The sale is going through. Someone is also buying our current home, so we didn't want to wait till the official closing to start the renovations we're doing and put off the closing on our buyers loan further.

good luck! I cannot give any official advice, but when comps are done it's between houses that are in similar, close by neighborhoods for value, square footage, and the rest is unclear to me, as well. I know that people are more attracted today by 3 bedrooms and 2 baths; land has to perk for that. I know from selling houses, we inspected our's for sale before the potential buyer even did their's because we wanted nothing wrong going on before we knew about it. It's worth it. Your realtor knows all of this. I have a friend contemplating why one realtor gave her 100,00 estimate OVER her home's value while another, who I know is a long-term reliable and honest person, gave her the lesser one, prob. based on comps. The rules on those are like I said, so unclear; you are lucky though it sounds like you are on your way!

Thanks Debsync! Our house is a very very rural brick home.. 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath.. however, 1 bed and 1 bath are in the finished basement that I've ripped the flooring out of the rec room you walk down the steps into. Just worried now that I'll lose the third bedroom and bath because of that.. and also don't know how much not having tile down in the bathroom is going to effect value and if adding some laminate in there will help make it not seem like a construction zone while theyre there.

p. s. sounded like you had it figured out, but does anyone here have a real estate license to advise her about how appraisals are done? This is a great question. Also about being in the midst of construction- I don't really understand why you would involve anyone looking at it or estimating its value before your work was done, or not done. You usually do it first or not, perhaps at the advice of your realtor, right? Then proceed so she/he can give you an estimated appraisal and it has like I said, several factors that go into it. Whether we think it's perfect and should be priced higher often does not matter. Still I have always said, you cannot raise your asking price once it's set, but you can always go a bit higher and lower it if you end up at 6 months in a dry period and then good advice to us was take it off for a few months til holidays were over, and re-list it without making any mention of "Lower Price!" or such, but you can actually of course have a lower price on the home. Anyone can look it up and discover it's been off the market and then put back re-listed price, but still it can always be lowered like I said. Can't come back and raise it.

I would be interested in what someone answers who knows real estate well, and the market where you are, and the laws and how banks set it up when appraisals are done and folks are pre-approved, etc., looking at it. SO much of it to me is curb appeal still- it's VERY subjective. I have always bought the house I saw that took my heart away! Then we went to work on what we needed to do to it, what was wrong with it, before making an offer. Different times, different places, it's all up in the air here at the beach for example, it is NOT the heydays that were here before the last market crash, but it's coming back! There is only so much land on an island.

I would discuss this with your realtor and your banker ASAP as this could seriously affect the appraisal and therefore the loan amount.

Debsync, no realtor, we bought the house in an auction for probably (my estimate) a quarter of its finished and updated worth.. We were given an occupancy agreement and have a date in May when we must close by. To safely close on a loan by that date, we need to have an appraisal for our "bridge loan" on our current home and this one in the next few weeks. They need to cumulatively appraise at a certain value. Coincidentally we now have a buyer on our home but they are young and we are worried they won't be approved or something else will go wrong, so we've decided to continue with the bridge loan to cover our butts so that just incase, we still have a period of time before we're making two house payments. Buying and selling at the same time is rough!

Having no appraisal beforehand for reference is whats giving me anxiety in the situation.. The house lacks curb appeal but can be made into a beautiful home. It has a good bit of land, an attached garage, a semi open floor plan, its in what I think is a great location, but even that's subjective. I can see where this home will go but I worry that I'll get an appraiser who cant, who hates the location, won't count the third bed and bath, and sees it as a construction zone. Just wondering what I should focus on and what will hurt us the most.

If the appraisal doesn't go well( fingers crossed it will) you could also look into a construction loan.

That's true bichonbabe.. Most of the renovations we are making are cosmetic (aside from ripping out a basement wall which is done, and adding windows, which will come later) so I'm not sure how that works. We will have all the renovations aside from the windows done before May as well.. We just have to have the seller paid by mid may and don't know how long it will take for the loan to process.

hey, adware..how's it going? If you are concerned that not finishing the third bedrom and bath it seems like it will be adding to your appraisal, so why not complete it? I understand the money issue, but if it efects your appraisal it's worth it, right? I wish I knew more, and don't know why a real realtor won't give advice for you! Happy Easter, enjoy Good Friday, Debbie

Thanks Debbie.. I guess we will cram as much work into the next two weeks as possible, schedule an appraisal and hope for the best :) Happy Easter to you and yours as well!!

Thank you Lizzie! Its just so hard to pick good comps when our house is so far out in the middle of nowhere. To me, that's a plus, but I've also read that new homes going up around yours increases its value. Plus, we had an appraisal on the home we live in currently, which we're selling, and it came in a lot lower than expected. It seemed they compared it to same bed/bath homes that were right in town and vinyl, while ours was brick and stone.

So heres a question.. If the comparable homes come in at a price per square footage, is it safe to estimate ours by multiplying those by our square footage? Is that how an appraisal would be done?

Adware: Appraisers are not too worried about basic cosmetic things, if a bedroom needs paint it isn't a huge knock to the price. I have had appraisers tell me that if the floor is unfinished "bare plywood or concrete" even if the room is done it is considered an unfinished space. Also your plumbing needs to work so if the kitchen cabinets are removed and your working on the sink getting installed it is considered non-working even if the sink you plan to install is sitting on the floor in the kitchen. Appraisers aren't concerned with "what could be" even if all your materials are on the jobsite, it needs to be in place and working/useable.

Everything should be "finished". As in...trim, flooring, paint, etc. done and installed. Otherwise, the house condition will be downgraded. Basements are a little differently graded anyway but then without flooring, your basement may not count as finished area. Either delay the appraisal or get the work done.

Thank you Jeff for your reply! I guess that means I should get to work picking out flooring for our basement rec room.

Hi adware. I did mortgages for 5 years and have looked at countless appraisals. Not to mention I just bought my house 2 years ago and did an appraisal on my property up north. As far as your bedroom and bathroom in the basement, if they are below ground level, they don't count as finished space as far as square footage is concerned. Cosmetic things aren't usually an issue. An appraiser looks at "effective age" of the house. In other words, you can have a 50 year old house on which no maintenance was done, no updates done, etc. and you can have a 50 year old house that has upgraded heating and electrical systems, paint done, etc. and they can appraise differently based on that. My girlfriend, whose mortgage I did, had no finished flooring in her kitchen, just plywood, and didn't have problems with her appraisal. You're better off having older finishes in your bathroom than having a new tub with no tile. Completed and older is always better than 1/2 done and newer. Unless you have the flooring in the house that will replace the carpet, the appraiser won't necessarily take your word for it that it's going to be done. Just be sure all appliances, sinks, faucets, tubs and toilets are in place. Normally one does a bridge loan on a house they currently own that is fully paid for. They use the equity from that to pay for the other house. I'm presuming you still have a mortgage on your previous home and are using a combination of the equity from that plus the value of the new home to cover the purchase price on the new? Hope this helps!

Adware hi! Lots of feedback, I like the recommendation again...you need a realtor especially in this situation where things could be iffy and I know how it is- it's so worth you paying a 6% fee for all the work they do to get it all through. I know comps are weird- but I do repeat: I have a friend going thru this right now, one says her home which is out in county is worth $100,000 more than the other realtor-- , she really put a lot of money into it over 10 yrs., totally revamped this house & it's gorgeous- but she can't comp it with one in a nearby downtown area,classic homes in our university town, nor new construction flooding the market but at a high cost too, a mile away- cause hers is so gorgeous and clean but it's a ranch house she painted it white, and trimmed every detail to perfection- it's up to her, I've always listened to this advice when she ( second one w/ lower price) advises cause she has worked a few great moves from three different houses, buying and selling , and our farm was a back-to-back closing, with a neighbor closing on a part we sold of the acreage at the table with us and the seller's rep present. Whew, it was a ton of work . So have a nice weekend, remember to breathe, and try to find one person to advise who you trust, period. Love to write & share!❤️

PS. He's right-- my sis and husband had their basement refinished totally a few yes ago so when they suddenly were moving they got more on appraisal for that guest room and tiled bathroom- they were so glad it had been done!

Hi Katinparadise! Thanks for all your tips.. The house is a 30ish year old house that hasn't had too many updates along the way besides the major stuff - Furnace, roof, electrical. We got a great deal on it and love the location and the view so we jumped on it ready to do the renovations to make it "ours". The way things are going now we should have everything done upstairs before the appraisal except for the bathrooms.. Which we're going to tile. We removed the carpet from both of them, changed the toilets and stripped off the wallpaper. I think I will just primer and buy some cheap linoleum to throw down in there for the appraisal. I'm really not sure on a good answer for the basement.. We do have some cheap laminate flooring laying around that we had taken out of the upstairs that we could install down there temporarily but I'm not sure if that's worth the effort.

The bridge loan decision was because our house wasn't even on the market yet when we decided to buy, so instead of two mortgages they wrapped them both into one with no principal payments for 12 months. Once our house sells the payment is calculated based on the remaining balance on the new home.

The basement has 8' ceilings puremichigan60. Everythings in really great shape its just that cosmetically everything was outdated.. The basement had orange-brown shag rug all throughout it, so we took it out. Now wishing I could have just lived with it until I at least made a decision on what we were going to put down there but we had a dumpster for the day and decided to go for it.

We just sold one house and bought another. My husband is also a loan officer so I have some knowledge. We were told our basement laundry room (full height) would be considered unfinished space if it just had the concrete floors. We ran out to home depot and put down carpet tiles temp which was cost effective and gave us the finished space. Like was said before, floors need to be down, all plumbing working, etc.

Sharonssjc thank you so much lol that's exactly the kind of experience I was looking to hear about. We could probably make time to get some flooring down there if we could just decide what we wanted.. I hate the idea of spending the money to put something down there in a hurry that were not going to be happy with..

Hi Adware. Hope I gave you some good advice. Sounds like you're doing all the right things. Having the bathrooms finished is paramount so glad to hear you're making it a priority. As far as the basement, you're right about spending money on something you don't want. It shouldn't necessarily have to be down to count, just on site so the appraiser knows it's a done deal. Perhaps that will save you a little bit of time. You could call your loan officer-they should be able to tell you what the bank expects.

I hope you'll post before and after pics when you're finished. It sounds as though you got a wonderful deal on a home that's going to be a perfect fit for you. I hope you'll let us know how your appraisal goes!

Katinparadise.. If you're interested I have been updating another thread with the progress we've been making throughout the house over here [https://www.houzz.com/discussions/our-fixerupper-with-a-view-dsvw-vd~3718520[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/our-fixerupper-with-a-view-dsvw-vd~3718520)

Thanks for all the advice!

Thanks Adware. I'll check out your progress.

Me, too! Also I read here someone said basement rooms finished as rooms don't count in square footage- that was not true for my sister's house in NC! They did have their's counted and I don't know if each state might be different or not, I would double check all advice on here. Hope your Easter was peaceful and good- going to look @ your other link!

Just updating everyone here.. We got an extension on the contract for the home we've moved into and have been renovating so we don't have to have the bank end settled until July now - Our old house sold and closed (as of today.. for our asking price!) and so we don't have to do the bridge loan now, just a regular mortgage.. And the appraisal came back much higher than we needed it to anyway!

For reference, the appraiser that came to my house said she could not count the main area of the basement as square footage because there was no flooring, but was about to count the bedroom and bath down there because they both have flooring (even though you must walk through the no-flooring space to get to them). Thanks again everyone.

Phew! Was in a bad situation like that last year but the appraisal did not go well. Thankfully we have very helpful and generous friends. How is the renovations going?

Appraisals are so stressful! We are very lucky it turned out the way it did.

They are going good! I'm ready for a break though to be honest LOL. It seems we are constantly in one project after another. I'll link the other thread I started a few months back.. It has before shots and then one most recent.

[https://www.houzz.com/discussions/our-fixerupper-with-a-view-dsvw-vd~3718520[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/our-fixerupper-with-a-view-dsvw-vd~3718520)

I hear you! We stopped the renovations around Christmas and are just getting at them again now. I'll check out your other thread.

I believe, according to my trusted appraiser, that home renovation (cosmetic) typically adds about 10% to the market value of a home when compared with a house needing cosmetic renovation. Hope this helps!