You've been dealing with potential homebuyers for weeks now, and finally found someone interested in purchasing your home. But they have to make sure that they can secure funding from their loan officer before the transaction can proceed. So it's time for the inevitable, as they send an appraiser over to estimate the value of the home. Even though the appraisal is not supposed to take into account the amount of clutter or mess you leave around, it is in fact one person's opinion of how much the home is worth. So now after appealing to potential homebuyers, you have to appeal to the appraiser as well.

In an earlier article, we covered some of the steps to ensure that the homebuyers could see how they envisioned living in your house as if it was theirs. Now that an appraiser is coming over, you want the same appeal as before, except you're trying to prove that the house has been well taken care of from the time you were there, and well worth the investment to purchase it. A lot of what an appraiser figures out is opinion, and in order for their opinion to be favorable upon you, you need to take a look around and see just what different kinds of thing you need to do to fix up the home.

Standard issues that you need to respond to are paint, exterior siding and gutters. The gutters should be cleaned out before their arrival just in case there's a rainstorm on the day of the appraisal so that the gutters can show how well they hold and drain water. Pain should always be in good shape all over the interior and exterior of the house, and the siding should be cleaned before anyone sees it. It just shows that you've kept the proper maintenance on the home, and it'll reflect in the appraisal.

Other issues to look out for are places where things can be unkempt rather easily, like bathrooms, kitchens, laundry rooms, etc. The appraiser is of course expecting there to be foodstuffs around, clothes around, whatever. But it's things like dirty stoves, unclean toilets and bathroom floors, and messy washrooms that can make an appraiser think twice about giving you a fair grade.

Keeping your house at a top grade and giving the impression of a clean, livable home with a good, solid foundation is one of the many ways you can ensure yourself of getting a fair shake when it comes to an appraisal of your home's value. Appeal to them the way you would appeal to a homebuyer, and you'll be able to sway things in your favor.