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» Old Wisdom - A Penny Saved...
Hard money lenders need to order appraisals on the properties they insure. You can save thousands of dollars by NOT ordering an appraisal on your commercial or investment residential property before 'floating' your loan to the lenders.
Lenders will want to know the value of the property before offering a Letter of Intent (a letter that basically says, "If what you told us true, and if the value of your property turns out to be sufficient, we'll lend you so much money at such a rate with so many points for such an amount of time."). So how to provide that without spending the money for an appraisal?
Ask a real estate agent for a 'reasonable estimate' based on comparable properties within a reasonable surrounding locale. Ask several realtors if you are concerned about the accuracy. Take the average and submit that with your loan request. Take photos of the property, inside, outside and the neighborhood. It will be sufficient for a hard money lender to offer a Letter of Intent. And you willl save more than a thousand dollars by not having to pay for an appraisal twice.
