Appraisal services for Fairview and Erie County homeowners

Here are the top seven reasons PA homeowners use Bill Schaaf & Associates:

  1. Find the right listing price (whether you're using an agent or selling the home on your own)
  2. Challenge a property tax assessment
  3. Remove PMI to reduce your monthly mortgage payment
  4. Reinstate their Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC)
  5. Review a different appraiser's report for verification
  6. If real estate needs to be divided because of a divorce
  7. To determine the true market value of property in question to settle an estate

Do you own a home in or near Fairview? Do you need help determining the value of your real estate?
Contact Bill Schaaf & Associates.

We at Bill Schaaf & Associates understand the unique needs of a homeowner seeking appraisal services. Our business practices and reporting formats are familiar to our business clients like banks, attorneys, and accountants. Being a consumer that probably doesn't look at appraisals on a regular basis,we'll be sure you get extra guidance and explanations through the appraisal process to better understand what we do and how we present our findings.

For Sale By Owner/Pre-Listing Services

Since you have an emotional attachment to your house, it's often very hard to be objective about it. A professional appraiser is objective and will tell you what you need to know, not just what you want to hear. A professional appraisal is a crucial negotiating tool once you have an interested buyer, in addition to helping you set a realistic selling price so your property will attract many interested buyers. The appraisal is something tangible to show the buyer. The appraisal is an independent third party's opinion of your property's price, not just you saying how much your house is worth. Interested buyers assume that you have an emotional attachment to your house and will be more likely to give credibility to a professional appraiser's value judgement than yours.

Need to remove PMI?

Getting the PMI (Private Mortgage Insurance) removed from your mortgage loan is a popular way to cut costs for homeowners. Your monthly payments will go down once your mortgage loan amount is less than 80% of the value of your home. In most cases you can apply to a lender to have the PMI removed from your loan. We are veterans in helping clients just like you rid yourselves of unnecessary PMI insurance.

Challenging property tax assessments

Lets say you live in a region that is going down -- your local tax assessor may have your home overvalued. This means you're probably paying higher taxes than you should be paying. The earlier you take care of things like this, the better off you'll be, since your property assessment may likely go up again in the next period. An appraisal report from Bill Schaaf & Associates is your strongest weapon when challenging your property tax assessment.

HELOC recently frozen?

Even if your specific property has not declined in value, your lender may make the decision to automatically freeze your home equity line of credit (HELOC) if your home is close to a declining area. This can be be unfavorable to your credit score since it may appear as though that credit line is maxed out, and also troublesome from a cash flow point of view. Bill Schaaf & Associates can help you reinstate your HELOC.

We Also Offer Field and Desktop Appraisal Review Services

Have you just been handed a copy of your appraisal and you'd like to have a veteran appraiser double-check it for verity or do you want a second opinion without the expense and delay of waiting for a whole new appraisal? An appraiser from Bill Schaaf & Associates can go out and check the subject and comps in a field review. Or, if you need it immediately, we can provide desk review and verify as many facts as we can using online data sources as well as our own files.

We can also provide you with a a retrospective review of any appraisal you may have had in the past. While typically requested by banks, you may need to take advantage of this service if you suspect mortgage fraud related to your property.