PUSTAY REAL ESTATE APPRAISAL

Mr. Pustay appraised our house $33,000 less than it was appraised a year ago for our county assessment and $43,000 less than it was appraised for in 2009 (despite an increasing market). The comps he picked were clearly not comparable to our home. Our real estate agent was very surprised that he would use homes 20+ years older, smaller by as much as 1,000 square feet, and clearly not up to the quality of a 6 year old custom-featured home like ours. He picked one home that was the anomaly in its neighborhood for comparison - it sold for $40,000 less than the three other homes that were similar in square footage and literally on the same street. Another home he picked was not for sale anymore at the time of the appraisal. Another home was on and off the market - and sold twice - in the last two years. In short, he seemed to find the four houses in the area that were the least desirable (and the cheapest) to compare to our home. Our house is on a busy road, so he discounted the values to account for that - which I understand - but he seemed to be unable to get past the fact that there was a 2-lane busy road in front of our house. We appealed the appraisal and supplied new comps to consider, which he rejected. In short, we are out $375 for an appraisal and now have to pay PMI on our house's refinancing because Mr. Pustay didn't dig a little more to find a truly comparable home. If you have a choice, please think twice before choosing his services. We had two appraisers in the last four years who seemed to be able to figure out that our house is worth more -- but now we're paying the price for his poor judgment. Lesson learned.