Wednesday, April 29, 2009

4/29/09 Staging

Can't talk now...appraiser is coming to check out our house tomorrow, and I need to make it look showroom-perfect again! When our contractor and architect did their photo session before our open house, they brought stuff to stage it with, including this rooster.

I thought this was hilarious, especially since of all things I find unattractive in kitchens, it's images of poultry. Although looking at it now, I kinda like the little guy.

And I need the rooster now! If only my kitchen still looked like this:

Which it did for about two hours for one day, before it discovered that it was not brought to life to be pretty, but to lead a life of hard work. And it has, but tomorrow, it needs to be a smiling model again.

4/29/09

2 comments:

Louise said...

Just curious: why do you want it to appraise high? Wouldn't a lower appraisal mean lower property taxes?

nb said...

Ah, no, fortunately and unfortunately. Today's appraisal is only about bank refinancing. In the New Order of things, our home equity line of credit is considered to be a "cash-out refinance" -- as though we spent our line of credit on cars or vacations. (In the Old Order, costs toward home improvement would count toward a regular "rate & term" mortgage.) "Cash-out" refinancing is done under stricter rules and higher rates, so the max we can finance is up to 60% of our house's value. Any debt above 60%, we'll have to put in cash...ouch!

Property taxes are another beast; those will also go up based on the estimated added value on the building permit, a fairly arbitrary number that everyone lowballs as much as possible. But that lowball was done in the Old Order, and no independent appraisal will bring that down! It's very unlikely our house value has gone down below what the county charges us for though.

Hmm, but, in the Old Order, refinancing didn't reset your property tax base, only selling does (per Prop 13)....but I'd better check in the New Order!

Aren't you glad you can avoid all this -- no property tax on a bus!