UAD 3.6 and the New URAR Form: What Central Texas Buyers and Sellers Need to Know

Property appraisals are about to change in a way that will touch every real estate transaction in Central Texas. On November 2nd, the entire appraisal form, the Uniform Residential Appraisal Report, or URAR, gets replaced with a redesigned version built around UAD 3.6 reporting requirements. If you're buying, selling, or working in real estate, you'll want to understand what's happening and why it matters.

I sat down with Stephen King of Culp Real Estate Appraisals to talk through the appraisal process, the new form, and what these changes mean for buyers, sellers, and agents in Bell County and the surrounding area. Stephen is a fourth-generation appraiser, his family has been in the business since 1906, and he's been appraising locally for 20 years. He's seen the market shift, the forms evolve, and the technology creep in. Now he's navigating the biggest change to the appraisal report in decades.

We covered how an appraiser determines value, why appraisals and contract prices sometimes differ, what's different about the redesigned report, and how these changes may affect lenders, agents, and the timeline to close. We also got into the realities of appraising homes in Central Texas, where acreage, pools, solar panels, property improvements, and neighborhood differences can make comparisons more complicated. If you've ever wondered what happens when an appraisal comes in low, or how agents can better prepare for the appraisal process, this conversation will help.

Table of Contents

• What an Appraiser Does and Who They Serve
• How Appraisers Determine Fair Market Value
• Why Price Per Square Foot Doesn't Work
• The UAD 3.6 Reporting Changes: What's Different About the New URAR Form
• How the New Form Affects Appraisers, Lenders, and Turn Times
• What Drives Value in Central Texas Real Estate
• Appraising Acreage, Pools, Solar Panels, and Unique Properties
• Seller Concessions, Rate Buydowns, and How They Affect Appraisal Value
• What Happens When an Appraisal Comes in Low: Reconsideration of Value
• How Agents Can Prepare for the Appraisal Process
• Which Area Is Right for You: Understanding the Central Texas Market
• Conclusion: What Buyers and Sellers Should Know Moving Forward

What an Appraiser Does and Who They Serve

When Stephen's children's friends come over, he tells them what he does for a living because it's not really that common. He determines a value for a house for a bank, usually for a bank, and it's to try to determine the fair market value. Fair market value means you have a typical seller and a typical buyer, you have a reasonable market, and you have a reasonable field of listings out there. Whenever somebody comes in and buys or puts an offer on a house, they typically go to the bank to look for a loan. The bank will hire the appraiser to do the appraisal.

Ninety-nine point nine percent of the time, whenever Stephen is doing an appraisal, he does it as if he's doing it for a lender, even if he's doing it for a private individual. That's because lenders have the most requirements and the most specialty requirements that people are looking for. The appraiser works for the lender, not the buyer or the seller. That's an important distinction. The appraiser's job is to protect the lender's interest by making sure the property is worth what the buyer is borrowing.

Stephen is a fourth-generation appraiser. His family has been in the business since 1906. His mom, his grandfather, and his grandfather's father were all appraisers. He took over 20 years ago. Before that, he went to school at Southwest Texas State, now Texas State, and then ended up going to culinary school in San Francisco during the turn of the century, 1998 to 2000. He had a blast. He came back to Central Texas, taught at a culinary school in Austin, met his wife, and got married. After the whole culinary experience, he was looking for a regular job that could help pay the bills and a future with the family. Getting into the appraising field was probably one of the better decisions.

He also paints. He has an art studio in downtown Temple at the Art Department on 14th Street. He tries to spend at least an hour a day there just taking a break from work. It clears his head. It helps him balance the appraisal side of things with the art side of things, and it helps him think clearly whenever he gets back to work. His three largest paintings are at the Texell Credit Union. The middle painting captures their birthday, and the two outside paintings go along with that to convey a mood and a feeling. He enjoys working with epoxy resin. It started as a way to find a really beautiful smooth layer to finish off his paintings. It made the colors pop. The more he started using it, the more it became part of the artwork and the material.

How Appraisers Determine Fair Market Value

An appraisal is different from a CMA, a comparative market analysis, that agents provide. Stephen is really impressed by a CMA sometimes. What agents do is try to compare the subject property to all the comparable sales. They try to find as many sales as they can that are similar, and then in that pool of sales, they try to find what is the most similar, most recent, and most comparable to that house. That's how they determine value. That seems to be the same thing with a CMA as well, trying to find that same conclusion.

The difference is that Stephen physically goes to the property and gets his measurements, determines the square footage, goes inside the house, and determines the quality and the condition of the house. After he determines all that, then he does his own kind of comparative market analysis, but he has a little bit more information at that point. He's looking at the materials of the house, the improvements, if somebody did any updating. Updated houses tend to sell for more. He usually likes to tell buyers that. Agents can help by leaving a sheet with all of that information. Those are things appraisers need to know. It's nice to have third-party verification. You can look at a house and think it's been updated until you really know, but it's nice to have that confirmation.

Every report Stephen does, he puts in at least four sales, closed sales. He tries to stay within one mile of the house, and he tries to have them closed within six months. If he can't find that, then he'll try to do a year. He'll stay within a year and then start spiraling outwards. He goes up to a year and stops there, and then he'll go out in distance. So he goes out in time before he goes out in distance. He tries to do time first and then distance. Further than a mile is sometimes necessary, especially for properties outside the city limits.

Whenever he's trying and there aren't any sales, he just tries to find similar markets. That's why schools matter. If you're trying to find a comparable in a different school district, you have to be able to justify making that adjustment. You've got to be able to write it down and explain it to somebody else why you're making that adjustment. If you can't do that, then you can't be making it.

Why Price Per Square Foot Doesn't Work

This is where appraisers and agents sometimes disagree. Price per square foot doesn't work in the appraisal world because you have a house that has a pool, or you have a house that doesn't have a pool. The price per square foot for the one that has a pool would be different than the one that doesn't. But it's not the perfect price per square foot anymore. You're now adding that amenity. The same thing with land. If you have five acres of land versus just a half-acre lot, and you have the same house on it, the value difference is going to be in the land. But you really can't compare those side by side and say that's a price per square foot because you've got to account for the land that's in there.

That's why appraisers have a lot of trouble with price per square foot. But amazingly, sometimes the price per square foot comes out to what the appraised value is, what the listing price is going to be, what the typical buyer and seller are going to agree on. So the price per square foot seems to work sometimes. It's like everything has to work out just right. It has to all line up.

Stephen's mom used to come to sales meetings at Covington Real Estate and tell agents that. Agents would look at each other like, what do you mean it's not price per square foot? She was trying to get agents to stop doing CMAs by price per square foot. But sometimes that's all agents feel like they have to go on. Stephen gets that. He's been in the industry with agents for quite a while. He knows agents are trying to help people out. Maybe with the new standardized form, everyone will get on the same page. Maybe it will all go to the common good for helping people out so that agents won't have those questions and won't have those issues. That would be nice.

The UAD 3.6 Reporting Changes: What's Different About the New URAR Form

If you're a buyer and you just bought your first house, you're not going to really notice any of the changes because it's going to be all new to you anyways in the process. The process itself really won't change much. But what is happening on November 2nd is the entire appraisal form, for some reason, is being completely changed. That's because over the years, they've been trying to standardize all the boxes that appraisers fill out so that everyone is filling out the same words, the same codes, in the same boxes. Even though they tried to do that several years ago, apparently appraisers weren't doing a good enough job. So they, the powers that be, the government, are trying to get everyone on the same page.

Instead of writing a word, a lot of times appraisers are now marking a box. That's the biggest change. Stephen came over to this podcast, and it was the first time he printed out the new form. The first couple of pages are, he doesn't want to talk too down on this form because he can see the way it's kind of heading, and he thinks we need to think positive about it. But at the same time, it's a lot of information. If they're trying to cut out a lot of information, the beginning of this form has too much redundant information.

The form is called the URAR, the Uniform Residential Appraisal Report. It starts off with the subject information, the house itself. The subject is basically the house that's being appraised, the house that's being bought. The second page has information on the buyers and the sellers, and then what kind of form they're using. The third page goes into the site information. After a couple of pages, they're finally getting into the principal information on the house. They're going to put in what the structure is, what the house is made of, what the components are, the size of the house. They're going to put if it has a fireplace, amenities, swimming pools, and things like that. All the basic subject information remains the same.

But what is different is where appraisers used to be able to say that it was an average style brick, or it was good style flooring inside, they can't say average or good anymore. Those words apparently don't mean anything. Condition now would be a C3, for example, which would be an average condition. C1, condition C, C for condition 1, would be like a new house. It goes all the way from 1 to 6. Six would be a house that's completely, you can't really live in it. Most houses in the Central Texas market that people are buying are from condition 1 to condition 4, possibly. That's a typical conventional FHA loan type thing.

With the new form, whenever Stephen goes to the house and looks at the house, he usually already had his initial information and his setup list in his head on how, he notices that it has double-pane windows, he notices that it has gutters, and he looks at the roof and sees the style of the roof, if it's worn or not. Well, now with the new form, he's got to take a picture of all these things. He's got to remember exactly, he's got to estimate the number of years that roof really has left in it. He's got to determine how long this brick can last. Whenever it used to be an overall condition of, okay, the life expectancy of this house was maybe 60 years without anybody living in it or without anybody really maintaining it too much, but it would last for 60 years. Now it's just a lot of information that you're going over in your head, and then trying to put it into this new form is just a lot on top of it.

It sounds like they're expecting appraisers to know more than just an appraiser would know. It's always been a minor inspection. Stephen calls it an appraisal inspection because he doesn't want people to get confused with an inspection inspection. Different loans require different appraisal inspection types. FHA, to him, is the most cohesive type where everything has to be documented and noted. You have to take a look in the attic, you have to make sure that the plumbing works and the electrical works and things like that. These are things that seem to be above his expertise. He's not a plumber. He's not an electrician. But he can at least smell if there was a fire in the attic. You can tell if somebody's taken care of the house or not by looking underneath it. So there are some good points to a lot of this.

How the New Form Affects Appraisers, Lenders, and Turn Times

The biggest difference Stephen sees between the previous form and the current form is that the old form had a really nice way to basically look at the side of it. You could see the side and see down it, this is the subject section, this is the site section, this is all the improvements, and then this is the comparable section. Now you're just kind of thumbing through until you find your way through it. It's going to be a little bit of heartache. Appraisers are going to slowly go through and figure out what pages are important, because there was a lot of boilerplate in the last form as well.

Stephen thinks the lenders are worried about turnaround times. He's not anticipating any fee changes, unfortunately, even though appraisers haven't taken a raise in quite a while. He tried to throw his extra fee out there because he's doing some extra work and trying something new, and he didn't get picked up on it. That was just because they were looking for somebody that's cheaper. There's always going to be somebody out there that's cheaper. But you're looking for a quality report.

This new report really, to Stephen, limits how much an appraiser can put into the report. He personally thinks it takes out a lot of the quality of the report. There were a lot of areas in which appraisers would have a lot of, there are still some areas where they can move the numbers where they need to go in order to make the adjustments. But he feels like a lot of the adjustments and the numbers, they're trying to get appraisers to get away from those. They're trying to get appraisers to look at this house as if they were all kind of the same. The powers that be are trying to get rid of the human side of things. Because of that, Stephen doesn't feel like he has as much room to move within this report to be able to say why he justifies that this house should sell for more because it has these things. It's just so limited.

He knows it technically does have a spot where he can make these adjustments. But he's not feeling that that is the way it's going to be into the future. He sees maybe 10 more years left in this field. The only reason they need people is just to get the measurements and things like that. He thinks they're getting more tools out there, and if they can get people to go and do these without having to pay as much for the fees, then they can go and just input the information into this report, and we're going to get away from the human side of things. That's where it's headed. That's fine until it's not. Until the robots take over.

To be clear, that's exactly what this report is. It's to get everybody very narrow-minded on the same page. It's unfortunate. Stephen doesn't know if a lot of appraisers are going to bow out after this report is mandatory. He doesn't want to say that would be good for his business. But he's here to help if anybody ever needs any help. He knows there are a lot of resources out there. He's looking at different software companies as well. He was on hold for two hours yesterday just to ask a simple question. That was his normal software company that he's usually on hold for a couple of minutes. It's because people are just having so much trouble. Right now is a good time to jump ship and look for other software companies. He's been with one company for his whole career. If they're going to change things and push him out, then it's time for them to go as well. That's the attitude appraisers are feeling.

But it's not going to take any longer to do these reports. It's just a matter of looking into it and making sure that all the details are covered. All the bases are covered. Stephen usually has about a week to get a report back, and he can negotiate. Everything that comes in usually gets negotiated. He can negotiate his fees and he can negotiate his turn times. But if he negotiates his fee too high, then they're going to maybe jump off to go find somebody else, or if his turn times are too late. He's running an independent private business where he's bidding on things and trying to get the business as much as he can.

What Drives Value in Central Texas Real Estate

Stephen thinks that Scott & White and some of the industrial businesses in the area drive the market. Scott & White is a really good opportunity because it has new employees come in every March. Some of the employees are looking for bigger houses, the new employees are going to take up the other houses. So it kind of gets the market moving. Central Texas is very fortunate to be insulated with Killeen and Fort Hood. That market's always doing really well just because it's movable. Any market that is moving is doing really well. That's where the Central Texas market is not doing well right now, it's not moving. It's kind of stagnant. People just aren't buying or selling.

Schools play a role. Agents pay a lot of attention to schools because their clients do. For whatever reason, whether it's somebody that someone knows that lives here already, or they heard through the grapevine, or they saw it on Facebook or whatever, there's always a stigma around a certain school district. It doesn't have to be Temple, but people have their minds made up before they get here a lot of times. The agent's job is to just give them a source to go to, to research that. But there's no changing their minds sometimes. They come in like, nope, it's got to be this school district or we're not buying it. There's not much agents can do at that point.

Agents have even had clients say, we have one kid in elementary school and one kid in middle school, so we need to be at this elementary school so that our middle school student will be, they're that specific. They want that pathway to a specific middle school or high school. Agents don't really know why. They don't know where the information comes from a lot of times. But that is always very critical if clients have kids in school.

Stephen follows smaller markets and smaller marketing trends a lot of times within neighborhoods. A lot of times he won't compare that particular neighborhood to another neighborhood as far as schools go. Agents see a price difference if you're talking just school district to school district. They see a price difference. Elementary and high school are usually the main focus. Middle school, clients can figure it out for those couple years. But elementary and high school are so important to people.

Stephen has to be very careful with a lot of the words, marketability and marketing and all that stuff, but those are all so different. He follows the data and he can see it, but people don't understand that. And they don't want to understand it. That's the hard part.

Appraising Acreage, Pools, Solar Panels, and Unique Properties

Not all properties are lot and block cookie-cutter homes with obvious comps available. As realtors, agents have to try to value properties from multiple angles, taking into consideration acreage size and value, property utilities, structure, other structures, land usage, all that stuff. How does an appraiser come up with values for different properties that may not have simple comps?

There's always something out there, unfortunately. Either that or Stephen is going to pass that report on to somebody else. Back to that price per square foot thing, in the universal, everything's good, copacetic world, you have the price per square foot, and you can figure it out. Well, now things are difficult, because now you have the pool, or you have the bigger lot. You've got to figure out what the, so Stephen recommends making yourself a grid. That's the fortunate part that appraisers have, they have a grid that they can utilize. He would just make a simple one with the lot size, the house size, and then the amenities, your garage, how many cars can you put in there, swimming pools and outbuildings, a guest house.

In your grid, you can start seeing, you start laying out your comparable sales, what has those things and what doesn't have them. What lenders require of appraisers is that they bracket everything, which means they have to find a house that's smaller and a house that's bigger. They have to find a lot that's smaller and a lot that's bigger. They have to find a house that usually has that thing, or if it doesn't, then they've got to make that adjustment.

With those differences, that's how appraisers determine value. So there's always a comp. Once you have your grid and you have your basics written out there, you can start seeing how the information is laid out and you can start seeing how the numbers start working. Because Stephen is always going through grids in his mind, he just has the information in his head. It's really hard to explain sometimes. But that is simply what he was saying earlier, whenever you're comparing apples to worms, or apples with the worm in it, and you've got to figure out what the price of that worm is. Even if you can't find one that's right next door to it, just go as far out as you can. He would try to find just a similar house and start there.

That's hard on the realtor side of things sometimes, because every appraiser approaches it differently. When agents are pricing, helping people price something, it's like, I think this is going to be fine. Well, not anymore now that everyone is standardized. That maybe will help with that. Stephen gets that. But he got into this business to help people. He really wanted to, buying a house and getting into it, getting a fair shake at something is rare. Every now and then he'll put on the brakes and put up the red flag and say, this doesn't look right or something, look into this a little bit more. That's checks and balances. But ultimately, he wants to do good for people. Maybe everyone will get on the same page. Maybe it all goes to the common good for helping people out so that agents won't have those questions and won't have those issues. That would be nice.

Solar Panels

Solar panels can go kind of either way. Stephen did have somebody argue with him that solar panels decreased the price of the house because they were kind of a pain. But solar panels to him ultimately are a gimmick by the electric company to be able to just buy space from you, or make you pay for their space to be able to put up their solar panels so that they can get a bigger discount. They give you a little bit of a discount on it and stuff. But it still seems like kind of a big scam in the Central Texas area.

Whenever Stephen sees solar panels on houses, you may be able to see that they improved the house by X amount of dollars. But then sellers will argue that it's worth Y amount of dollars. He can see that that's the cost. But here's the thing about solar panels that people don't realize. There's apparently one company in the United States that will lend you on solar panels, will lend money on solar panels. They work for the solar panel company. They help get into it. But most banks, and people don't realize, most banks will not lend on solar panels if that company is still lending on it, unless the homeowner owns them straight outright. Now, if they own them straight outright, then the lender wants to know how much they're worth by what the appraisal will say.

It's just like swimming pools. How much is that house worth? You can find that. That's easier to find. What is that house worth with solar panels versus that one that doesn't have it? It's just hard conversations. You can follow the data and you can see it, but people don't understand that. And they don't want to understand it. That's the hard part.

Agents see a lot more value for solar panels down in Austin. When they run comps down there, it's like, okay, well, there's a lot more value inputted into a home with solar panels that has a battery versus a home without that stuff. The batteries, that's where it's at. If you're getting solar panels, get a battery. That's going to add more value than the panels.

Swimming Pools

Swimming pools are another amenity that can be hard to value. You've got two apples that are next to each other. What's the price of that worm? Which is typically a swimming pool or a shed or something like that. That's the question. That's the number one question that especially new realtors will ask. How do I comp this out? It's got this building or this pool or whatever the owners have done. If you're lucky, you can find that just right next to it. The difference of that value is how much that's worth.

Seller Concessions, Rate Buydowns, and How They Affect Appraisal Value

When you're looking at a buyer-seller transaction and you're trying to come up with the value, agents come up with the market price and appraisers come up with the value. How do appraisers take into consideration concessions or rate buydowns or whatever the seller is giving?

Stephen pleads ignorance on a lot of the loan stuff. Whenever it comes to buydowns and things like that, he has no idea. Whenever it comes to concessions, he'll just try to find what they typically are in the market. A lot of times you can see what they're averaging out through the MLS, the Multiple Listing Service, or you can ask Zillow sometimes what the concessions are. But what he's finding right now in the Bell County market overall is 4%. So 4% of the sales price. On a $100,000 house, that's $4,000. Anything outside of that, more than that, 5-6%, then he'll take that off of the sales price within the appraisal report on the comparable sales.

A lot of people, especially the builders, want to keep the sales price way up there at $300,000, but then they'll offer $50,000. What is that actual sales price? Stephen did this one in a class a while back. On a cash sale, he'll see concessions, but he doesn't see how you get money back on a cash sale. It's less money given. It's probably super low concessions on cash deals. He's assuming sometimes it's probably somewhere between $500 to $1,500, and it's mainly to cover title.

Agents have had agents call them and ask, why are you asking for this on a cash deal? The answer is, well, we're fronting $250,000 to buy this house. That's all we got. So you're paying our title policy. Or our part of the title or whatever. That's fair.

This makes sense now. In the past when buyers needed a little bit extra help with either buying the rate down or something like that, agents have asked for that 5-6% in seller's concessions, and sometimes the values come in low to where they've had tidewater issues or something like that. Now it's all making sense. The pieces of the puzzle are falling together. That's indicative of a market that's going down. The values are ultimately going down whenever you start finding all your sales. If you have one sale that has a bunch of concessions on it, it's really not going to pull your report down too far. If all your sales have concessions, then it's going to make a factor into it. Therefore, that's going to start slowly bringing the market down. That's a lot of pressure on an appraiser. Well, it's facts and you see the data. It's so boring and Stephen has ADD, so luckily he's just kind of jumping around all these different pieces of data.

What Happens When an Appraisal Comes in Low: Reconsideration of Value

When you're coming up with value, are you looking at, this is the number one question of realtors, especially in this market where there aren't a lot of comps, are you taking into consideration pending deals or active deals? Not getting your value from that, but looking at those?

It's very important. Every report Stephen does, he'll put in at least four sales, closed sales. He'll try to stay within one mile of the house, and he'll try to have them closed within six months. If he can't find that, then he'll try to do a year. He'll stay within a year and then start spiraling outwards. He goes up to a year and stops there, and then he'll go out in distance. So he goes out in time before he goes out in distance. He'll try to do time first and then distance. Further than a mile is sometimes necessary, especially for properties outside the city limits.

Whenever he's trying and there aren't any sales, he just tries to find similar markets. That's why he was asking about schools. If you're trying to find one that's in a different school district and things like that, can you actually justify making that adjustment? You've got to be able to write it down and explain it to somebody else why you're making that adjustment. If you can't do that, then you can't be making it.

As realtors, what do agents need to prepare for? Honestly, Stephen doesn't think agents are going to have to notice too much except for just getting familiar with some of the pages of the form, figuring out how to read it. What agents are going to try to figure out is if the value is correct or not correct, or if they have to get a reconsideration of value, which is when you don't believe the value the appraiser came up with. You think the appraiser may have missed something. It can be a plethora of things. Appraisers could come from not this area, or they might have limited information on the MLS, or it just determines what their experience is.

Reconsideration of value is knowing the report and being able to try to determine and try to find where in the report are the missing components and the mistakes so that you can fix those and try to find what you can do to fix that. Whenever you try to find the value of a house, it's usually pretty straightforward. But a lot of times there may be something that may be misleading or something. So there might be a mistake. You're trying to find that whenever you're going for a reconsideration of value.

Whenever you try to go for that reconsideration of value, the more information that you have within that report and whatever you're going to be able to find and your information that you have, the more ammo you're going to be able to come back to the lender and say why you find those mistakes or why you don't think those comparable sales are the correct ones to use.

How Agents Can Prepare for the Appraisal Process

As realtors, what do agents need to prepare for? Honestly, Stephen doesn't think agents are going to have to notice too much except for just getting familiar with some of the pages of the form, figuring out how to read it. What agents are going to try to figure out is if the value is correct or not correct, or if they have to get a reconsideration of value.

Stephen thinks everyone is just going to need a little bit of grace right now. He doesn't foresee too much issue. But just a little bit of grace with communicating, because appraisers are trying to iron a lot of it out. They might be on hold for two hours. It's not like they're just playing pickleball. They are trying to solve these issues. It's just a matter of being really patient with it. Grace is all he asks.

One thing agents can do: if you don't mind just telling your sellers to turn off their sprinkler system. The yard looks good with the wet grass and stuff, but appraisers have to go around the outside of the house and their shoes get soaked in the morning.

Agents can also leave a sheet with all the updates and improvements. Those are things appraisers need to know. It's nice to have third-party verification. You can look at a house and think it's been updated until you really know, but it's nice to have that confirmation.

Will there still be tidewaters that come through when you're not getting to that value? Nothing's going to change on that end. It's just going to be the form that's changed. It's just so that it can be put into a data field. Stephen's not an expert, but he feels like CoreLogic is a big company that's been buying a lot of other companies. He thinks they may control the MLS now. He thinks they're using, a lot of the information is easily tied to that, to where it can be found in just the click of a box instead of a written word. They're just trying to make it easier for all of that to tie up together. More standardized. For the AI robots to take over.

Agents are always going to be needed to make their lives easier. Whenever the market picks up, any market that is moving is doing really well. That's where the Central Texas market is not doing well right now, it's not moving. It's kind of stagnant. People just aren't buying or selling.

Which Area Is Right for You: Understanding the Central Texas Market

Central Texas is very fortunate to be insulated with Killeen and Fort Hood. That market's always doing really well just because it's movable. Any market that is moving is doing really well. Scott & White is a really good opportunity because it has new employees come in every March. Some of the employees are looking for bigger houses, the new employees are going to take up the other houses. So it kind of gets the market moving.

Schools play a role. For whatever reason, whether it's somebody that someone knows that lives here already, or they heard through the grapevine, or they saw it on Facebook or whatever, there's always a stigma around a certain school district. People have their minds made up before they get here a lot of times. The agent's job is to just give them a source to go to, to research that. But there's no changing their minds sometimes. They come in like, nope, it's got to be this school district or we're not buying it.

Agents see a price difference if you're talking just school district to school district. They see a price difference. Elementary and high school are usually the main focus. Middle school, clients can figure it out for those couple years. But elementary and high school are so important to people.

Stephen follows smaller markets and smaller marketing trends a lot of times within neighborhoods. A lot of times he won't compare that particular neighborhood to another neighborhood as far as schools go. He has to be very careful with a lot of the words, marketability and marketing and all that stuff, but those are all so different.

Conclusion: What Buyers and Sellers Should Know Moving Forward

The appraisal process is changing, but the fundamentals remain the same. On November 2nd, the entire appraisal form gets replaced with a redesigned version built around UAD 3.6 reporting requirements. If you're a buyer and you just bought your first house, you're not going to really notice any of the changes because it's going to be all new to you anyways. The process itself really won't change much.

For agents, the key is to get familiar with some of the pages of the form, figure out how to read it, and know where to find the comparable sales page. That's the page where it compares the subject to all the comps, and that determines the value. The reports are going to look a lot thicker. They're going to be very small print. You might need magnifying glasses. But the information you're looking for is still there.

For sellers, turn off your sprinkler system before the appraiser arrives. Leave a sheet with all the updates and improvements. Those are things appraisers need to know, and it's nice to have third-party verification.

For buyers, understand that the appraiser works for the lender, not for you. The appraiser's job is to protect the lender's interest by making sure the property is worth what you're borrowing. If the appraisal comes in low, you have options. You can ask for a reconsideration of value. The more information you have within that report and whatever you're going to be able to find, the more ammo you're going to be able to come back to the lender and say why you find those mistakes or why you don't think those comparable sales are the correct ones to use.

Stephen got into this business to help people. He really wanted to, buying a house and getting into it, getting a fair shake at something is rare. Every now and then he'll put on the brakes and put up the red flag and say, this doesn't look right or something, look into this a little bit more. That's checks and balances. But ultimately, he wants to do good for people. Maybe everyone will get on the same page. Maybe it all goes to the common good for helping people out so that agents won't have those questions and won't have those issues. That would be nice.

The Central Texas market is not moving right now. It's kind of stagnant. People just aren't buying or selling. But the market will pick up. Any market that is moving is doing really well. Central Texas is very fortunate to be insulated with Killeen and Fort Hood. That market's always doing really well just because it's movable. Scott & White is a really good opportunity because it has new employees come in every March. Some of the employees are looking for bigger houses, the new employees are going to take up the other houses. So it kind of gets the market moving.

If you're buying, selling, or working in real estate in Central Texas, reach out. I help military families and anyone relocating to the area. I spent 13 years on active duty as an Army infantryman, and I understand the timeline and the stress of a PCS move. Let's talk through your situation, your timeline, and your goals. We can set up a call or meet in person if you're already in the area. I'm here to help you get a fair shake and make your next move as smooth as possible.