Appraisal services for Northern California homeowners

The top 7 reasons CA homeowners order from Barton J. Vogel:

Find the right listing price (whether you're using a real estate agent or selling the home on your own)
Challenge county's assessment of your property
To cut your monthly mortgage payment by removing PMI
To reinstate their Home Equity Line of Credit (or HELOC)
To review another appraiser's report for verification
In the case of a CA divorce, where real estate needs to be divided
To settle an estate in Northern California by determining the true market value of property in question

Own a home in or near Elk Grove, CA and need help deciding the value of it?
Contact Barton J. Vogel.

At Barton J. Vogel, we understand the special needs of a homeowner looking for appraisal services. Our regular business clients are used to the appraisal process and the customary "products" we deliver to them. But as a consumer,we will give you extra guidance and explanations through the appraisal process to more clearly understand what we do and how we document the results of our analysis.

For Sale By Owner/Pre-Listing Services

Since you have an emotional attachment to your own 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 a potential buyer, in addition to helping you set a realistic price to sell at so your home will attract buyers. The appraisal is something concrete to show your buyer. It's an independent third party's opinion of your home's price, and not just you saying how much you think your home is worth. Interested buyers assume that you have an emotional attachment to your home and will be far more likely to give credibility to an experienced appraiser's value conclusion than yours.

Need to cancel PMI?

PMI stands for Private Mortgage Insurance. A preferred money saver for homeowners is to get the PMI removed from their mortgage loan, thus saving them money on their monthly payments. Once your mortgage loan amount is less than 80% of the value of your property, in most cases you can apply to your lender to have the PMI removed from your loan, which will make your monthly payments go down. At Barton J. Vogel, we're qualified in helping folks just like you do away with unneeded and unwanted PMI insurance.

Challenge a property tax assessment

Lets say you live in a local area that's going down -- your local tax assessor may have your home overvalued. That only means you are going to pay more taxes than you should. Since your property assessment may likely go up again in the next period, the earlier you take care of things like this, the better off you'll be. When challenging your property tax assessment, getting an appraisal report from Barton J. Vogel is your number one weapon.

Was your HELOC recently frozen?

Even if your specific property has not declined in value, your lender may decide to automatically freeze your home equity line of credit (HELOC) if your home is close to a declining area. Not only can this be troublesome from a cash flow viewpoint, but it can be damaging to your credit score since it may appear as though that credit line is maxed out. An appraisal from Barton J. Vogel can help you reinstate your HELOC.

Field and Desktop Appraisal Review Services

Would you prefer a second opinion without the added expense and delay of waiting for a whole new appraisal? Or do you desire a seasoned expert to double-check your appraisal for precision? Barton J. Vogel offers field reviews where we go out and check the subject and comparables in question. Or, if you need it ASAP, we can provide 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. While typically requested by banks, you may wish to take advantage of this service if you suspect mortgage fraud related to your home.