If you’re getting an appraisal, you’re likely trying to find the best ways to improve the value of your home before the date of your home appraisal. You’re probably wondering how much having a dirty house affects your appraised value or not and whether it’s worth paying for a deep cleaning in order to ensure that you have a clean house or just letting your dirty house affect it.
To answer the question, it’s important to first know what an appraisal is all about. By knowing what a home appraisal is for and what an appraiser will do, you’ll be able to judge whether or not you wish to present a clean house or a dirty house and whether that will change the market value of your property.
What is an Appraisal For?
An appraisal value helps lenders determine how much money they can afford to lend you. A higher appraised value is generally better than a lower appraisal value, as it suggests that the property is worth more money. Typically, a lender will offer you a loan based on the home appraiser’s report on the assumption that if you were to miss any payments on the loan, the money lost would be made up by the sale of the property.
What Do Appraisers Do?
Before visiting your home for the home appraisal, your appraiser will find and identify similar properties and comparable properties in the area, usually properties that have been sold, in order to get an idea of where in the real estate market your property sits in. They will try to look at similar homes in the neighborhood to ensure they are getting an accurate idea. These will often be found through real estate agents and websites.
Then, when the appraiser arrives at your home, they will do a quick sketch of the outside, including things like measurements and calculations, which they will use to figure out the square footage of the property.
Once they enter the home, they will take a look around. They will make notes about whether your home is detached, whether it has an attic or a basement, and how many rooms it has. The appraiser will note down any amenities and will then note down the condition of the roof surface, windows, screens, floors, walls, and bath floor. There will also be a general condition report and a section declaring any adverse conditions that might affect things like structural integrity.
This is what the appraiser will use to determine your home’s appraised value. It will be a combination of real estate values, curb appeal, and the structural integrity of the property.
Does the Cleanliness of the House Change Anything?
In theory, the cleanliness of the house shouldn’t change home appraisals. However, that being said, The Cleanup Team has said that from what clients have said, the appraisal value does sometimes rise in cleaner properties. Largely, this is due to first impressions. A good cleaning can make a home feel much nicer, and sometimes that will make a difference to how the appraiser sees the property.
The cleanliness should not affect the home’s worth very much unless the property is dirty to the point of affecting the property. If the property has unmade beds or some dust on the television stand, the appraisal is likely to go well. If, however, the dirt and poor conditions are so bad that you need new flooring, new walls, new decoration, or any other big changes, this will likely have an effect on the home’s value. Even if the value for comparable homes in the neighborhood is super high, you will likely notice that your house will not be rated well.
Should I Do a Deep Clean Before an Appraisal?
If you’re getting an appraisal done, there is no harm in deep cleaning your property before the appraisal. You can either clean your house yourself or hire someone to do it for you if you can cover the cleaning costs. We wrote an article about cleaning classes that may help, or this one on cleaning tips and hacks.
A deep cleaning will ensure that your home gives a better impression, and this will help to boost your home’s value. A clean home feels better to be in, but it is also easier to see what’s going on. Your appraiser is more likely to be able to see things like the state of the floor and the walls better. These are important, as they allow appraisers to spot things like rising dampness, structural issues, or issues with the amount of space in the property.
How Else Can You Increase Your Property Value for an Appraisal?
There are a few other things that you can do to make a difference to the price quoted by the appraiser. They are:
- Do any quick DIY jobs: things like half-finished paint jobs, dirty cabinets, missing light bulbs, and half-built shelves – finish them to make your property look better and to assure the appraisal that everything is in working order.
- Improve curb appeal: do some landscaping and gardening out the front of the property to enhance the value of the home by creating a beautiful front garden. Plants, potted or otherwise, cladding, door accessories, rendering, and a fresh coat of paint on the windows, all of that can help to make your home look better from the outside.
- Make sure everything is working: there are always things that are broken in our homes that we forget about. Maybe you’ve got a dodgy tap or a toilet chain that takes a few goes to work. It is worth paying out to have someone come and fix those things before the appraiser arrives, as they will want to see that such things are in working order in order to assign the property more value.
