There are no comps in my neighborhood

[Anonymous]

I want to refinance my house, and have been trying to get an idea of what it might appraise for, but there are no comps! Anything that sells within several blocks of me is a falling-down wreck that gets gutted and expanded and sold as condos. It's a high demand area, and everyone who's living in a renovated but otherwise unaltered house is staying put. There has honestly not been one sale of a SFH to a single family in over two years.

What to do? What will an appraiser do? Will he take into account the prices of the condos? To give an example, a house exactly like mine (except in horrible condition) was sold to a developer for something like $400k. They gutted it and expanded it by 30% or so, turned it into two two-bedroom condos, and sold each for $700-800k. What does this mean with regard to the value of my intact three-level three-bedroom house?

[Anonymous]

Uh oh, the appraisers, armed with their online appraisal degrees, will probably have to go further out to find data points, not to your benefit. Ours came back and didn't make sense whatsoever. Only price points with trades smaller, older and considerablely less costly.

Is your bank v conservative? They might pressure the appraiser to price low as well. Neither want the market to go up!

[Anonymous]

a house exactly like mine (except in horrible condition) was sold to a developer for something like $400k

You said there were no comps? "Horrible" is subjective, but if you can prove it, try and convince the appraiser $400K+repair costs is your "comp."

[Anonymous]

What do you need the appraisal to come back as? Tell the appraiser straight out and see if he can come back with that amount or better. How much you want to bet he does?