Once your house is under contract, one visit you do not control decides whether the buyer’s loan can go forward: the appraisal. A stranger with a camera, a tape measure and a form walks through, and the lender uses the resulting report to decide how much it will lend against the property. You cannot choose the appraiser or negotiate with the report. You can, though, remove the reasons for an appraiser to guess, and you can make sure nothing you do looks like pressure. This guide covers what the visit is, what gets measured, a day-by-day plan for the week before, the conduct that crosses a legal line, and where your options end.
What a buyer’s appraisal is, and who is in charge of it
The CFPB describes an appraisal as a written document giving an opinion of what a property is worth, prepared as an independent assessment. When a buyer borrows to purchase, the lender may get a new appraisal and may require the buyer to pay for it. That shapes your position as the seller in three ways.
First, the lender chooses and engages the appraiser, not the buyer and not you. Second, you are not the client, so you have no automatic right to attend, to read the report or to dispute it. Third, the person who does receive it is the buyer: under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act’s Regulation B rule on appraisal copies (12 CFR 1002.14), a lender must give the applicant a copy of each appraisal or written valuation promptly upon completion or three business days before closing, whichever is earlier, and may not charge the applicant for the copy. Your listing agent can ask the buyer’s agent whether the buyer will share it.
FHA and VA loans add property-condition requirements on top of value, which we cover below.
What the appraiser measures, and what the appraiser compares
An appraisal for a typical house has two halves. The first is a description of the property: the living area measured room by room on the exterior, the room and bedroom and bathroom count, the heating and cooling, the lot, the condition of the roof, the windows, the kitchen and bathrooms, and any additions or conversions. The second half is the comparison. The appraiser pulls recently closed sales of similar houses nearby, adjusts for differences such as size, age, condition and features, and reconciles those into an opinion of value. Whether the house sits in Midlothian, Glen Allen or Short Pump, the appraiser looks for similar houses nearby, and an unusual house or lot in Henrico County or elsewhere may require looking further out.
Two practical points follow. A finished attic, a converted garage or a basement with no clear permit history is where assumptions creep in. And the comparison half depends on which sales the appraiser knows about. The listing agent can offer the comparable sales that support the contract price, and the appraiser can use them or not. If you want to see what your own comparables look like before you list, a free home valuation is the place to start, and our guide to what a Richmond home is worth explains how the comparison logic works.
Want to see the comparable sales behind your house before the appraiser does?
Our free home valuation pulls the recent nearby sales a lender’s appraiser is likely to weigh and shows you how your house lines up against them.
The week before: a day-by-day checklist
Count back from the visit date and spread the work like this.
- Seven days out: Ask your listing agent for the appraisal date as soon as the buyer’s lender sets one. Gather a one-page list of improvements, each with a month and year, a short description and who did the work. New roof, replaced water heater, remodeled bath, finished basement: if a receipt exists, put it in the folder.
- Six days out: Pull any permits and final inspection sign-offs for additions, finished basements, decks or garage conversions. The pre-listing inspection report in your file, if you ordered one, is also useful to hand over for the property description.
- Five days out: Fix the small items you were going to fix anyway: a loose handrail, a cracked outlet cover, a dripping faucet, a door that will not latch. None of these changes the comparison, but all of them are observations that otherwise end up in the report.
- Three days out: Confirm the electricity, water and heating or cooling are on and will stay on through the visit, so nothing about the house is left to guesswork.
- Two days out: Clear access to the attic hatch, the crawl space, the electrical panel, the water heater and the garage. Move the stored boxes that block them. Trim anything touching the roofline or crowding the foundation.
- Day before: Deep clean, open the blinds and replace burned-out bulbs. Put the improvements folder, the permits and the list of comparable sales supplied by your agent on the kitchen counter or in the agent’s hands.
- Day of: Leave the house unlocked or arrange a lockbox or agent presence for access. Keep pets away, turn on the lights and the heat or air, and step out unless the appraiser asks you to stay. If you remain, answer factual questions and let the appraiser work.
What you can do, and what you cannot
Everything on the list above is about information and access. The legitimate lane is wide: let the appraiser in on time, keep the utilities running, show finished space honestly, provide documents about improvements, and have your listing agent send the comparable sales that support the contract price. Handing over true facts, in writing, with dates, is normal and welcome.
The illegitimate lane is narrow but absolute. The federal valuation-independence rule in 12 CFR 1026.42 requires that the value assigned to a home reflect the independent judgment of the person who prepares the valuation. It lists conduct that violates it, including seeking to influence an appraiser to report a minimum or maximum value. Its direct reach is to lenders and settlement-service providers, but the principle is the one to follow wherever you stand: do not name a number, do not tell the appraiser what the buyer is paying as a target, do not hint that future business depends on the result, and do not argue about adjustments in the driveway. If you disagree with a finding, the proper path is a documented request that goes through the lender, with facts attached.
Preparation has an honest limit. You cannot add square footage, change the sales an appraiser selects or make a dated feature look current. Paint and tidy shelves help the appraiser see condition clearly, but they do not move a value reached by comparison.
Condition items that matter more on VA and FHA loans
If the buyer is using a VA or FHA loan, condition counts as well as value. The VA’s minimum property requirements chapter lists topics such as access, utilities, roof covering, attics, crawl spaces and lead-based paint. On the roof, it says the covering must prevent the entrance of moisture and provide reasonable future utility, durability and economy of maintenance, and it states that the appraiser is not required to climb on the roof. On paint, the VA text says defective lead-based paint must be treated by removing cracking, scaling, peeling, chipping and loose paint and repainting, or by covering the surface. On utilities, it requires that each living unit have electricity for lighting and necessary equipment.
FHA loans carry their own requirements in HUD Handbook 4000.1, whose table of contents includes appraiser-facing sections on roof covering and defective paint. Ask the buyer’s lender which items the appraiser will flag for the particular loan. In practice, sellers on these loans get ahead of the visit by scraping and repainting peeling exterior trim, fixing roof leaks that show as stains, making sure stairs and decks feel solid and repairing anything that would leave a visibly unsafe condition.
When the number comes in short
A value below the contract price is not the end of the deal. The usual paths are renegotiating, the buyer bringing more cash, a challenge to the report with evidence, or walking away if the contract allows. Our guide to what happens if a Richmond home appraises below the offer price walks through each option in order, and the article on appraisal gap coverage in a Richmond offer explains what the buyer can promise in writing before the appraisal ever happens. If the shortfall becomes a pricing conversation, read when to cut the price on a Richmond listing before you respond.
Start with the comparable sales, not the appraiser
Request your free home valuation and see the recent nearby sales that frame your price. If you are also planning your next purchase, run a live property search, or see how we handle listings on our sell with us page.
Written by the Mission Realty Team. Real Broker LLC, 3701 Cox Rd, Richmond, VA 23233, (804) 601-4960. Meet the Mission Realty team. Serving the City of Richmond and the surrounding counties.
Frequently asked questions
Can I be at the house while the appraiser works?
Nothing in the federal rules I read gives a seller a right to attend, because the buyer’s lender engages the appraiser, not you. In practice many appraisers are let in by the listing agent or the owner, and some prefer to work alone. Ask your listing agent to confirm the arrangement with the buyer’s side, and if you are home, stay out of the way and answer questions about the house rather than steering the conversation toward value.
Do I get a copy of the appraisal?
Not automatically. The copy rule protects the loan applicant, who is the buyer. Under the CFPB’s Regulation B rule the lender must give the applicant a copy promptly after completion or three business days before closing, whichever is earlier. If you want to see it, ask the buyer or the buyer’s agent whether they will share it.
Does a deep clean or fresh staging change what the appraiser reports?
A clean, uncluttered house lets the appraiser see the actual condition, layout and finished areas, which keeps the appraiser from guessing. It is not a way to raise the number, and you should not expect one. The appraiser is comparing your house to recent sales, so condition and features are weighed against those, not against how the rooms look in photographs.
Can I hire my own appraiser to prove the value?
You can pay for a private appraisal, but it does not replace the one the buyer’s lender orders. The CFPB notes that a lender may need to get its own appraisal for the loan, and that is the report the loan decision rests on. A private report can still help you decide how to respond if the lender’s number comes in short, and our sibling articles on low appraisals cover that path.
My finished basement has no permit. What should I do before the appraisal?
Gather what you do have: the date the work was done, who did it, receipts and any inspection sign-offs. Then ask your Virginia real estate attorney or the building office in your county how to handle unpermitted work. Do not describe the space as something it is not. How an appraiser counts that space is the appraiser’s call, and unpermitted work can raise questions for the lender.
What if the appraiser notes a repair on a VA or FHA loan?
Both programs set minimum property requirements, and the lender can require a noted item to be fixed before closing. Whether you, the buyer or both of you pay for it is a negotiation under your contract. Bring the item to your listing agent immediately, get a contractor quote, and keep documentation of the finished repair so it can be re-inspected.
Is a roof the appraiser cannot see a problem?
The VA pamphlet says the appraiser is not required to climb onto the roof and, when the roof cannot be viewed, must explain how its condition was determined. Leave the ladder access or a clear view of the roofline where you can, and keep any roof invoices or warranty paperwork handy.
