Real estate appraisal services for homeowners in the city of Portland and Multnomah County

Here are the top seven reasons why OR homeowners call on James Harris:

Pre-listing appraisals (whether you're using a real estate agent or selling the home on your own)
Challenge property tax assessments
Remove PMI to reduce your mortgage payments
Reinstate your Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC)
Verify a different appraiser's report
If real estate needs to be divided because of a divorce
Determine the true market value of property in question to settle an estate

Do you own a home in or near Portland? Do you need help determining the value of your real estate?
Contact James Harris.

We at James Harris understand the unique needs of a homeowner in need of appraisal services. Our regular business clients get the appraisal process and the customary documents we provide. Being a person not in the real estate industry that ordinarily doesn't see an appraisal every day,we will provide you with extra guidance and explanations through the appraisal process to more clearly understand what we do and how we report our conclusions.

Pre-listing Services/For Sale By Owner

Since you have an emotional attachment to your home, it's often very hard to be objective about it. Professional appraisers, like the ones at James Harris, are objective. We'll tell you what you need to know, not just what you want to hear. In addition to helping you set a realistic price to sell at so your home will attract buyers, a professional appraisal is very crucial as a negotiating tool once you have a potential buyer. It gives you something concrete to show the buyer. It's an independent third party's opinion of your property's value, and not just how much your house is worth. Interested buyers know you have an emotional attachment to your home and will be much more likely to give credibility to a qualified appraiser's value conclusion than yours.

Need to remove PMI?

An attractive money saver for homeowners is to get the PMI removed from their mortgage loan, thus saving them money on their monthly payments. PMI stands for "Private Mortgage Insurance". Your monthly payments will go down once your mortgage loan is below 80% of the value of your house. In most cases you can apply to your lender to have the PMI canceled from your loan. We are veterans in helping customers just like you dismiss unnecessary PMI insurance.

Challenging Multnomah county's assessment of your property

Lets say you live in a local area that is going down -- your local tax assessor may have your house overvalued. That means you are paying more taxes than you should. The quicker you take care of things like this, the better, since your property assessment may likely go up again in the next period. An appraisal from James Harris is your number one weapon when challenging your property tax assessment.

HELOC recently frozen?

Your lender may just make the decision to automatically freeze your home equity line of credit (HELOC) if your home is close to a declining area -- even if your specific property has not declined in value. Not only can this be difficult and inconvenient from a cash flow point of view, but it can be harmful to your credit score since it may appear as though that credit line is maxed out. James Harris can help you reinstate your HELOC.

We Offer Field and Desktop Appraisal Review Services

Would you prefer a second opinion without the added cost and delay of waiting for a whole new appraisal? Or do you desire a seasoned appraiser to double-check your appraisal for precision? James Harris offers field reviews where we go out and check the subject and comps in question. If you need it ASAP, we'll provide you with a desk review and verify as many facts as we can using online data sources as well as our own files.

We can also provide you with a a retrospective review of any appraisal report you may have had done before. Even though this is usually requested by banks, you may desire to use this service if you suspect mortgage fraud related to your home.