Real estate appraisal services for homeowners in the city of Kailua Kona and Hawaii County

The top seven reasons why HI homeowners hire Lightheart Appraisals:

  1. To get a pre-listing appraisal (whether they're selling the home on their own or using a real estate agent)
  2. Challenge Hawaii county's assessment of your propertyworth
  3. Remove PMI to reduce their mortgage payments
  4. Reinstate their Home Equity Line of Credit (or HELOC)
  5. To review a different appraiser's report for verification
  6. If real estate needs to be divided because of a divorce
  7. Determine the true market value of property in question to settle an estate in HI

Need help determining the price of your house in or near Kailua Kona, HI?
Contact Lightheart Appraisals.

We at Lightheart Appraisals understand the special needs of a consumer looking for appraisal services. While our typical business 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 (FSBO)

Since you have an emotional attachment to your own house, it's often very hard to be objective about it. Professional appraisers, like the ones at Lightheart Appraisals, will be objective. We'll tell you what you need to know, not just what you want to hear. A professional appraisal is a very valuable negotiating tool once you have a likely buyer, in addition to helping you set a realistic selling price so your property will attract buyers. The appraisal is something concrete to show your 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 house and will be more likely to give credibility to an experienced appraiser's value opinion than yours.

Appraisals to remove PMI

PMI stands for Private Mortgage Insurance. A popular way to save money for homeowners is getting the PMI canceled from their mortgage loan, thus saving them money on their monthly payments. Once your mortgage loan is below 80% of the value of your home, in most cases you can apply to a lender to have the PMI eliminated from your loan, which will make your monthly payments go down. Lightheart Appraisals is experts in helping folks just like you abolish unwanted PMI insurance.

Challenging Hawaii county's assessment of your property

Lets say you live in a region that is declining -- your local tax assessor may have your house overvalued. That means you are paying more taxes than you should. Since your property assessment may likely go up again in the next period, the faster you take care of a matter like this, the better off you'll be. Getting an appraisal report from Lightheart Appraisals is your strongest weapon when contesting your property tax assessment.

HELOC recently frozen?

Your lender might decide to automatically freeze your home equity line of credit (HELOC) if your property is close to a declining area -- even if your specific property has not declined in value. This can be be bad for your credit score since it may appear as though that credit line is maxed out, and also difficult from a cash flow point of view. A professional appraisal from Lightheart Appraisals can help you reinstate your HELOC.

We Provide Field and Desktop Appraisal Review Services

Have you just been given a copy of your appraisal and you'd like to have an expert double-check it for precision or do you need a second opinion without the added cost and delay of waiting for a whole new appraisal? An appraiser from Lightheart Appraisals can go out and check the subject and comparables in question in a field review. Or, if you need it immediately, we can provide you with a desk review and verify as many facts as we can using online data sources as well as our own files.

Do you need a retrospective review of an appraisal report? Lightheart Appraisals can help with that too. Even though this is usually requested by banks, you may need to utilize this service if you suspect mortgage fraud related to your house.