6 Common Reasons Homes
Fail VA Loan Appraisal

The top six reasons. Now there's more than six, but these are the most common. And remember not all VA loans require an appraisal here in Southern Utah.

So as I'm sure you know, but in case you're very, very new at this, an appraisal is a report that's done on the properties of value. Home values in St. George Utah and the surrounding areas are constantly changing so the lender wants to make sure your not over paying for the home. So a certified licensed appraiser that's authorized by the VA comes out into the home that you're either living in or that you're going to buy and they essentially kind of doing an inspection. Not so much an inspection as it is an appraisal, but there are some inspections, they are doing some inspecting, in addition, to try to determine the value of your home based on other homes in the area and what they're selling for.

They also want to make sure that the home meets the minimum property requirements established by the VA. Here are your six reasons why that, if you're not careful, you may cause yourself some headaches along the way and you may never get the loan done if there's insufficient heating in the house. We've had some VA loans, they got approved, it had wood-burning stoves. Believe it or not, the loan has gotten approved and the appraiser didn't necessarily think it was a problem because either the home was small enough or the piping or whatever you want to call it that went from the wood-burning stove throughout the house was sufficient.

But if it's insufficient heating, you're going to have a problem. Poor electrical system. Okay. That's pretty self-explanatory. Dilapidated roof. We see this quite a bit, especially on your older homes.

You find your dream home, you want to buy it, or you been living in a home that you bought 30 years ago or that was built 30 years ago. There was all this equity that now you're trying to pull cash out. Your roof needs some repair. Okay. That could be a problem. Broken windows, that's obvious. Heating and cooling of the home if you have a broken window is much more expensive. There's some safety concerns obviously if there's a window that's broken.

Termite and pest inspections. Okay. There cannot be any evidence of wood-destroying insects, specifically termites or other pests. This is pretty easy to fix. You go get it treated, you can bring the chemicals out there, whatever it is you do to get rid of stuff. But if there's been damage done, structural damage also needs to be fixed.

And then ultimately the big problem, don't see it often, but if the foundation of the home has been cracked, that home's not going to be inhabitable without a some real work.

So, of course, there are other issues. Right off the top of my head, I was involved in and discussing a loan the other day where the septic system was different than what the appraiser wanted to see. And so there had to be some additional water testing done. And each city or county, if they have additional water testing rules or regulations on top of the VA, then you've got to get all the way down at the city or County or township level.

So there are some things that you need to be certain of or aware of when you're going to do a VA home loan. These are just the six most popular.