Historical appraisals (also known as retroactive appraisals) are performed when a situation requires an appraisal of property to determine Market Value where the effective date of the appraisal is a date in the past.
Banks and lenders usually require a real estate appraisal in order to determine that the value of a property (the Market Value) is at least as much as the value of the loan that the lender will be making on the property. The effective date of this type of appraisal is the date that the report is written. These are the most common type of real estate appraisals.
Other situations may require an historical appraisal to determine Market Value as of a specific date in the past.
Some instances of when an historical appraisal (retroactive appraisal) would be necessary are:
- to determine the value of property as of the date of a death (date of death valuation) or the date of a divorce of the owners.
- to determine a decline in value of a property that you sold at a loss (like an investment property) in order to claim a loss for tax purposes.
- to determine the market value of property as of the date that a taxing district assessed the value for property taxation.
In order to facilitate the appraisal of property as of a date in the past, you may need to provide records such as deeds, inspection records or photographs that can substantiate the condition of the property at the time the records were created. The appraiser will use this information as well as historical market data (such as sales in the Multiple Listing Service (MLS)) and construction data (cost to build) to determine the market value of the real estate as of the date required.
If you need an appraisal for an divorce, or for dividing assets, of for another reason that requires an historical appraisal, please email info@theappraisaliq.com, or call (512) 541-2107 for more information.