The Appraising Group Serving South Jersey

We appraise homes through South Jersey, including Camden County, Burlington County, Gloucester County, and Cumberland County.

We provide accurate and reliable estimates that you can depend on. We serve clients needing home appraisals for reasons ranging from first and second mortgages, to divorce settlements, to reverse mortgages. If you need an ethical, experienced, and trustworthy appraisal for your property in South Jersey, we can help you.

Real Property Appraisal: The Basics

A home purchase is the biggest purchase that most people make in their lifetimes. It may be where they raise their families, or a second vacation property, or even an investment property.  Regardless of the reasons for purchasing a property, it is a complex transaction that requires multiple parties.

The majority of the parties involved are very familiar. The most known face in the transaction is the real estate agent. Next, the bank provides the financial capital needed to bankroll the transaction. Ensuring all aspects of the transaction are completed and that the title is clear to pass from the seller to the buyer is the title company.

So what party is responsible for making sure the property is consistent with the purchase price?   In comes the appraiser.   We provide an unbiased estimate of what a buyer could expect to pay – or a seller receive – for a parcel of real estate, where both buyer and seller are informed parties. A professional Pennsylvania certified appraiser from The Appraising Group will ensure you as an interested party are informed.

INSPECTING THE SUBJECT PROPERTY

The first step to getting an accurate appraisal is to inspect the property.  We verify key details about the property such as the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, the conditions of the property and surrounding neighborhood, and amenities, etc.  We ensure that all of the specifics of the claimed property amenities are accurate and in the condition a typical buyer would expect.  We verify the stated size of the property and illustrate the layout of the property, often including a sketch of the floor plan. Most importantly, we find any overlooked amenities or defects that would affect the value of the property.
Once the site has been inspected, we use two or three approaches to determine the true value of the property: a paired sales analysis, a replacement cost calculation, and an income approach when there is a possibility of the property becoming a rental.

ANALYZING COMPARABLE SALES

Our appraisers know the New Jersey real estate market; specifically, the South Jersey market. We thoroughly understand the value of particular features to the people of any given area; the appeal of Haddonfield vs. Marlton, Cherry Hill vs. Voorhees.  Our appraisers combine this qualitative knowledge and combine it with quantitative data about the area that we have available to us.  He or she pulls recent transactions in the neighborhood, identifying properties that are ‘comparable’ to the property in question. Applying data on the value of certain amenities such as square footage, additional bathrooms, hardwood floors, fireplaces or view lots (just to name a few), we add or subtract from each comparable sales price so that they more accurately reflect the value of the property when considering the features of subject property.

  • Consider that a comparable property has an extra half bath that the subject doesn’t.  The appraiser may deduct the value of that half bath from the sales price of the comparable.
  • What if the subject property has something that a comparable doesn’t have, such as an extra half bath?  ? In cases like this, the appraiser will add the value of that bath to the comparable property.

We are expert home appraisers with extensive knowledge of the South Jersey real estate market; we know the value of real estate features in our market. In residential home appraisals, the “comparable sales” approach is commonly awarded the most consideration when performing an appraisal of a home.

COST
APPROACH

With this approach, the appraiser analyzes information on local building costs, the cost of labor, and other related costs  to determine how much it would cost to build a property similar to the one being appraised. This value often sets the maximum on what a property would sell for. It’s also the least used method.

VALUATION USING THE INCOME APPROACH

A third method of appraising a house is sometimes used when it is located in a part of New Jersey that has a high number of rental properties. In this situation, the amount of income that one could expect from renting out the property is factored in to determine the current value.

ARRIVING AT VALUE CONCLUSION

By using information from all of the common valuation methods, our appraiser is then ready to stipulate an estimated market value for the property in question. The estimate of value at the bottom of the appraisal report is not necessarily the final sales price, but it is likely to be the best indication of what a property could sell for in an open market. Depending on the specific situations of the buyer or seller and their level of urgency or a buyer’s desire for that exact property, the closing price of a home can always be driven up or down. Nonetheless, the appraised value is often used as a guideline by lenders who are unsure about loaning a buyer more money than they could recover in the event they had to resell the property. At the end of the day, an appraiser from The Appraising Group will guarantee you get the most fair and balanced property value so you can make wise real estate decisions.