[quote=Essbee]Three years ago (March 2012), we were in escrow, and our (now) home in 4S was appraised low. Not only that, the appraiser indicated that it was a “declining market.” Because of this, we had to put 25% down (rather than the 20% we had planned.)

Three years later, it is worth about $300K MORE than the price we paid.

I guess I’m glad now that we put down 25%, but it left us without much savings for a little while…

I don’t think there is much science behind this business.[/quote]

Congratulations on the price increase! 🙂

Agree with your last sentence. As a result of the bubble, appraisers had requested changes to the system that would have enabled them to appraise a property without any pressure from the sellers or RE agents. It seemed to be working for a while, but it looks like things have reverted to the appraisers hitting the numbers for the RE agents/sellers.