Attention homeowners in Traverse City and Grand Traverse County: Get an Appraisal today!

Check out the top reasons MI homeowners hire Brown Dog Appraisal, LLC:

  1. Pre-listing appraisals (whether they're selling the home themselves or using an agent)
  2. Challenge a property tax assessment
  3. Remove PMI to reduce your mortgage payment
  4. Reinstate their Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC)
  5. To review another appraiser's report for verification
  6. In the case of a MI divorce, where real estate property needs to be divided
  7. Settle an estate in MI by determining the true market value of property in question

Own a home in or near Traverse City, MI and need help determining the price of it?
Contact Brown Dog Appraisal, LLC.

At Brown Dog Appraisal, LLC, we understand the particular needs of a homeowner seeking appraisal services. While our usual business clients understand the appraisal process and standard reporting formats, you as a consumer will get extra customer service in the form of an explanation of the process and even special consumer-friendly reporting forms if the assignment allows for them.

Pre-listing Services/For Sale By Owner

It's very hard to be objective about your house because of your emotional attachment to it. Our professional appraisers at Brown Dog Appraisal, LLC are objective. We won't just tell you what you want to hear, we will tell you what you need to know. A professional appraisal is very crucial as a negotiating tool once you have an interested buyer, in addition to helping you set a realistic price to sell at so your property will attract interested buyers. The appraisal is something tangible to show the buyer. The appraisal is an independent third party's opinion of your property's value, not just how much you think your house is worth. Potential buyers know that you have an emotional attachment to your house and will be much more likely to give credibility to a seasoned appraiser's value judgement than yours.

Appraisals to cancel PMI

PMI stands for Private Mortgage Insurance. An attractive way to cut expenses for homeowners is to get the PMI removed from their mortgage loan, thus saving them money on their monthly payments. Your monthly payments will go down once your mortgage loan amount is down below 80% of the value of your home. In most cases you can apply to the lender to have the PMI eliminated from your loan. Brown Dog Appraisal, LLC is veterans in helping people just like you abolish unneeded and unwanted PMI insurance.

Challenging Grand Traverse county's assessment of your property

If you live in an area that is going down or is not appreciating as much as other houses close to yours, your local tax assessor may have your home overvalued. That means you're most likely paying more taxes than you should. Since your property assessment may likely go up again in the next period, the faster you take care of a matter like this, the better. When contesting your property tax assessment, getting a professional appraisal from Brown Dog Appraisal, LLC is your chief weapon.

HELOC recently frozen?

Your lender just might choose to automatically freeze your home equity line of credit (HELOC) if your home is in or near a declining area -- even if your specific property has not declined in value. This can be be damaging 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. Brown Dog Appraisal, LLC can provide you with a professional appraisal to help you reinstate your home equity line of credit.

We Also Provide Field and Desktop Appraisal Review Services

Would you prefer a second opinion without the charge and delay of waiting for a whole new appraisal? Or do you desire an expert to double-check your appraisal for efficiency? An appraiser from Brown Dog Appraisal, LLC can go out and check the subject and comps in question in a field review. If you're in a hurry, we'll provide you with a desk review and verify as many facts as we can using online data sources as well as our own files.

Need a retrospective review of an appraisal? We can help with that too. Even though this is usually requested by banks, you may need to exercise this service if you suspect mortgage fraud related to your home.