8 Ways to Prepare for a Home Appraisal

When it comes to selling your home, finding a buyer is just the first step. Before you can close the deal, you need to pass two important milestones: the home inspection and the home appraisal.

A home appraisal is a report of your home’s value in the market. It’s performed by a certified, state-licensed professional, whose primary job is to objectively evaluate your home and state how much it is worth. This is the number that determines if your home is priced appropriately in consideration of its location, features, and condition, particularly in relation to prices of comparable homes in your area that have previously closed a sale.

If the appraisal comes in low, your buyer is likely to have trouble getting enough lending from the bank. If they can’t make up the difference in cash, you’ll either have to renegotiate the sale price or lose the buyer. Obviously, neither is a great scenario. Nor is it particularly uncommon: according to the most recent REALTORS Confidence Index Survey, published by the National Association of Realtors, 76% of home sales that closed in February 2023 had contract contingencies, and 44% of those were related to appraisal issues.

You’ll never have full control over what your home will appraise for, but you can take steps to increase your chance of pricing where you need to. Here are 8 good places to start.

Get an early appraisal

Take care of quick fixes

Boost your curb appeal

Give your home a deep clean

Take a look at the comps

Check that everything is working properly

Go green

Talk up your home

When you’re making upgrades or changes in preparation for your home appraisal, keep in mind the golden rule that if it’s not broken, don’t fix it. Spend your time, money, and effort on things that clearly need attention, and don’t stress over the things that don’t. The buyer already decided they liked your home based on what they saw during their showing, so any fixes at this point are just to improve market value. If the appraisal comes in low and you lose your buyer, then you can start considering more extensive upgrades.