Good Luck/Bad Luck

Sometimes, what starts out as annoying bad luck turns into your dream come true.

Last year, we refinanced our home equity loan to include our new car. Good rates, convenient, blah blah blah. As part of the process, our home had to get re-appraised. So when we got our appraisal results, we were stunned--no, SHOCKED--at how low the appraisal was. It was high enough for our needed LTV and all that, but I was expecting it to be at least $20K higher and probably $40K higher. I think the appraiser was trying so hard to find other properties with accessory apartments that he ignored more obvious comparables. Or maybe he was padding his reputation, because appraisers who consistently throw out high figures get into mucho trouble. A house down the street sold the same week for about $35K more than our appraised value--and it's smaller and doesn't include an income source. In other words, I knew this appraisal was way off, but what ya gonna do?

My feelings changed when we got our property tax notice. They had readjusted our property value to be a whopping 50% higher than the year before! 50%! It was ridiculous. If anybody offered to buy my house for the amount the county appraised it for, I'd be gone within 24 hours and shaking the buyer's hand and wishing them luck.

I noticed some fine print that said we could appeal our value. A-ha! With crappy appraisal in hand, I headed down to the government building. Within a mere 10 seconds (I kid you not), my home was readjusted to the low appraisal amount, saving me hundreds of dollars on my property taxes for the year.

Did I feel a tad guilty about using an appraisal that I knew was way lower than my home's actual value? Mmm only for a minute or two. Luck was just going my way that day. And it turned out to be good luck that had gotten a bad rap.

We have an appraiser coming again today as part of our mortgage refi. If he brings in a more logical number, let's just keep it between you and I, shall we? The county doesn't need to know.