Real estate appraisal services for homeowners in the city of Lake Charles and Calcasieu County

Here are the top seven reasons LA homeowners hire Whittington Appraisals Inc.:

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

Need help deciding the value of your house in or near Lake Charles, LA?
Contact Whittington Appraisals Inc..

At Whittington Appraisals Inc., we understand the particular needs of a homeowner in need of appraisal services. While our usual business clients understand the appraisal process and standard reporting formats, you as a consumer will get extra customer service in the form of an explanation of the process and even special consumer-friendly reporting forms if the assignment allows for them.

For Sale By Owner (FSBO)/Pre-Listing Services

Since you have an emotional attachment to your own home, it's often very hard to be objective about it. Our professional appraisers at Whittington Appraisals Inc. are objective. We won't just tell you what you want to hear, we'll tell you what you need to know. In addition to helping you set a realistic price to sell at so your house will attract buyers, a professional appraisal is very valuable as a negotiating tool once you have a likely buyer. It gives you something tangible to show the buyer. It's an independent third party's opinion of your property's value, and not just how much your home is worth. Potential buyers know you have an emotional attachment to your house and will be more likely to give credibility to a professional appraiser's value report than yours.

Need to remove PMI?

PMI stands for Private Mortgage Insurance. A preferred way to save money for homeowners is to get the PMI eliminated from their mortgage loan, thus saving them money on their monthly payments. Your monthly payments will go down once your mortgage loan is below 80% of the value of your property. In most cases you can apply to your lender to have the PMI canceled from your loan. Whittington Appraisals Inc. is veterans in helping customers just like you rid yourselves of unneeded and unwanted PMI insurance.

Challenging a property tax assessment

Your local tax assessor may have your house overvalued if you live in a region that is going down or is not appreciating as much as other houses close to yours. That only means you're probably paying more taxes than you should. Since your property assessment may likely go up again in the next period, the quicker you take care of things like this, the better. When contesting your property tax assessment, getting a professional appraisal from Whittington Appraisals Inc. is your number one weapon.

HELOC recently frozen?

If your house is in or near a declining area, your lender may decide to automatically freeze your home equity line of credit (HELOC) - even if your specific property has not declined in value. This can this be difficult and inconvenient from a cash flow standpoint, and detrimental to your credit score since it may appear as though that credit line is maxed out. Whittington Appraisals Inc. can help you reinstate your HELOC.

Do You Need Field and Desktop Appraisal Review Services?

Have you just been given a copy of your appraisal and you'd wish to have a veteran appraiser double-check it for precision or do you desire a second opinion without the charge and delay of waiting for a whole new appraisal? An appraiser from Whittington Appraisals Inc. can go out and check the subject and comps in a field review. If you need it in a rush, we'll provide 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? Whittington Appraisals Inc. can help you with that. While typically requested by banks, you may want to utilize this service if you suspect mortgage fraud related to your property.