Appraisal services for Cortland and Cortland County homeowners

The top seven reasons why NY homeowners use Bear Rock Appraisal:

  1. Pre-listing appraisals (whether you're using a real estate agent or selling the home on your own)
  2. Challenge property tax assessments
  3. To reduce your monthly mortgage payment by removing PMI
  4. Reinstate their Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC)
  5. Verify a different appraiser's report
  6. If property needs to be divided because of a divorce
  7. To settle an estate in Cortland county or NY by determining the true market value of property in question

Do you own a home in or near Cortland? Do you need help deciding the price of your real estate?
Contact Bear Rock Appraisal.

At Bear Rock Appraisal, we understand the unique needs of a consumer looking for appraisal services. While our typical clients understand the appraisal process and standard reporting formats, you as a consumer will get an extra level of 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

Since you have an emotional attachment to your own home, 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. In addition to helping you set a realistic selling price so your house will attract buyers, a professional appraisal is a very valuable negotiating tool once you have an interested buyer. The appraisal is something concrete to show the buyer. The appraisal is an independent third party's opinion of your house's value, not just you saying how much your house 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 expert appraiser's value conclusion than yours.

Need to cancel PMI?

PMI stands for Private Mortgage Insurance. An attractive way to cut expenses for homeowners is getting the PMI canceled 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 home, 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 Bear Rock Appraisal, we're seasoned in helping clients just like you delete unwanted PMI insurance.

Challenge property tax assessments

Your local tax assessor may have your home overvalued if your home is not appreciating as much as other homes nearby. This only means you are going to pay higher taxes than you should be paying. Since your property assessment may likely go up again in the next period, the quicker you take care of a matter like this, the better off you'll be. A professional appraisal from Bear Rock Appraisal is your number one weapon when contesting your property tax assessment.

Was your HELOC recently frozen?

If your house is in a declining area, your lender just may decide to automatically freeze your home equity line of credit (HELOC) - 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 unsuitable from a cash flow angle. Bear Rock Appraisal can help you reinstate your home equity line of credit with an expert appraisal.

Field and Desktop Appraisal Review Services

Have you just been given a copy of your appraisal and you would prefer to have a seasoned expert double-check it for efficiency or do you desire a second opinion without the expense and delay of waiting for a whole new appraisal? An appraiser from Bear Rock Appraisal can go out and check the subject and comps in a field review. If you need it immediately, we'll 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 We can assist you While usually requested by banks, you may want to make use of this service if you suspect mortgage fraud related to your home.