<p>Has anyone heard of this before? We are refinancing our home and the appraiser wants to take photos inside the house. In all the years we have owned a home no appraiser has ever wanted to see the interior of the home to take photographs.</p>
<p>I feel uncomfortable with this as I don’t know where these photos could end up. I am thinking of removing or covering family photos; draping sheets over antiques, etc.</p>
<p>It’s not a question of value - we are refinancing a home for about 1/3 of its current value.</p>
<p>Maybe they want photos in case they have to justify their appraisal. I would just get someone else if you’re uncomfortable with it. I imagine that there are lots of appraisers out there looking for work.</p>
<p>Three appraisals done on the current house (initial loan and 2 refis), every appraiser took a picture of the kitchen and the master bath (I made sure everything was hidden inside the cabinets). I’d be uncomfortable if they had to take pics of anything else.</p>
<p>Added: I just got our appraisal back and laughed so hard! The cats are in EVERY indoor pic taken.</p>
<p>We have had this done several times. Once the appraiser came earlier than expected, and he took pictures in my bedroom where the bed had not been made yet!!</p>
<p>We had an appraisal done a few years ago and they only took pictures of the outside of the home, but someone did do walk through of the inside of the home and took notes.</p>
<p>Yes. They’re looking for quality of construction. They’re making sure all the appliances are there in case they foreclose and you strip the place. That kind of thing. They don’t care about your personal possessions and covering them up is fine.</p>
<p>I have done three refi’s. The last was five weeks ago and it was the most involved appraisal we have EVER experienced. He took pictures on the inside, in the attic, in the back yard. Then he came back to re check the square footage. This is on a property that (even with the real estate doldrums) we have about 85% equity.</p>
<p>We did a refinance back in February (great deaal @ 4 5/8 for a 15 year fixed mortgage) and yes, the appraiser took inside and outside pictures. I guess I didn’t think anything of it because we don’t have anything out of the ordinary of really high value or hard to replace like antiques. In any event, the photos were taken from far enough away that one couldn’t make out the people in the family photos, anyway. Additionally, because our house happily comes with a nice view (which part of the appraised value comes from), the appraiser seemed to spend more time with the exterior shots than the interior ones.</p>
<p>Standard practice for all real estate appraisals. Now you don’t have to let them in but then they don’t have to assume the place is as nice inside as out. During the boom the appraisers were so busy they probably stopped doing interiors in some cases but it SHOULD be part of any good appraisal. I would take most note of kitchen, bathrooms, and master bedroom as these sell houses and determine value level within the range for that size and location of house.</p>
<p>I worked as a tax assessor during college and we did all those things (photos, measurements, look at heating and other building systems, etc.</p>
<p>I know when we had our house appraised years ago for a refinance they came in and measured rooms. I don’t remember if they took photos. I wanted to get bonus points for original stain glass. They did the comps including a house on the one really bad street in town, and we had to insist on getting another more local appraiser, whose assessment was more in line with what we thought our house was worth.</p>
<p>1 cat litterbox: -$13,000
2 empty cat dishes on the kitchen floor: -$768
1 cat clinging to living room drapes: -$2253
1 cute, fluffy, white kitten with big blue eyes curled up on a bathroom rug: Awww, priceless!</p>
<p>we did a refi in a similarly bad housing economy, where the price we paid(we were refinancing to a 15 only 2 year into a 30) was about the same as the current markets at the time even with the home values deteriorating. We had done some major renovations from the time of purchase, so to quantify that the value had not really dropped because of the improvements, new kitchen new bathrooms windows, basement refinished, etc. The bank had to justify the house was worth more than what we had paid for it. Pictures were taken, they wouldn’t even close on the house till we had carpeting put in and or finished flooring in the renovated rooms(we were still doing work on it) Had to fax paid bills of carpeting and wood floor installations to the bank as proof, as well as on site inspections.</p>