We are purchasing our home from our landlord and they have to do an appraisal.The house is fine and I am not really worried about except for the fact that my backyard has a ton of flower gardens and I have not had time to weed them. Do I need to hire someone to help me clean them up before they come?Also, Do they go through your closets and stuff like that?Thanks.
The appraiser will look in your closets, but they do not go through them. If your flower beds are unsightly, that may detract slightly from the value of the house, but not enough to hire someone to do the weeding. The main things the appraiser is interested in is the square footage, amenities, condition of the house and outbuildings, those sorts of things.
The weeds and messy closets won't matter one bit. The appraiser will just take a few measurements to verify the square footage. They might look at a few things like whether or not it still has old single pane windows, or the condition of the roof, but they're not looking at how messy it is, inside or out.
The appraiser is not supposed to take things like weeds into account- but there are several places where the abstract judgment of the appraiser does play a part. If the appraiser really likes or really does not like your house it may make a small difference.
Do Appraisers Look In Closets
Unless the yards are really a mess it shouldn't make a difference in the appraised value of your house. Appraisers have some latitude considering over all curb appeal. They will often take the overall appearance into consideration especially when the property is close to the needed amount to make the loan.....if the property really looks good they might bump the value up 2%-5% to meet the loan requirement. I have seen appraisers bump up the price as high as 10% because of the curb appeal (several years ago).....but in today's market appraisers are being much more cautious and conservative. Now it isn't unusual for lenders to get a second appraisal.
