Appraisals have become even more interesting than usual lately. Even if you think your house is sold, the appraisal can still be a place where things go wrong and the deal falls apart.

Most people know that the appraisal needs to come in at or above the sales price. If it doesn't you are essentially going to renegotiate the price.

But there are some new wrinkles with appraisals in our current real estate market. There are these three boxes!

Box number one says that the home in question is in a "declining market". Basically every county in our area has now been classified as being in a declining market, meaning property values are declining. So that box is going to get checked.

Box number two says that there is an oversupply of homes in the area. In most neighborhoods this is certainly true. Box number two is going to be checked at least 75% of the time.

Box number three says that the home in question has been on the market for more than 6 months. Again, this is a pretty common situation right now.

If any or all of these boxes are checked the lender will likely require a larger down payment. If the buyer was already putting 20% down, no problem. But those contracts are pretty rare these days.

So, in most cases buyers are going to have to be able to come up with additional cash or, if their credit is good enough, they may be able to get a second mortgage for the difference.

Either way, this is another obstacle in getting a house sold at a time when we didn't really need any!

There's not a lot a seller can do about this. You can impact box number three, in part, by pricing your home aggressively from the beginning so you never hit that six months mark. Believe it or not, there are buyers out there. It's more important than ever to get them to your house quickly and get an offer!