Most folks are pretty excited about the fantastic pace of local home sales in the first half of 2016 -- however, there is a downside.

As shown above, there are three main hurdles to buying and selling a home -- the home inspection, appraisal and loan commitment.  Well, right now, on many if not most of the transactions I am working with, we are experiencing significant delays on appraisals being completed.  It seems that local appraisers are having difficulty keeping pace with the roaring pace of home sales.  This, then, creates ripple effects as buyers and sellers are either delayed in knowing that the transaction will be successfully moving forward -- are closing dates are pushed back.

Again, it's great that we're seeing so many home sales (no complaints there) but the much slower than normal timeframe for appraisals being completed is creating some real headaches for buyers and sellers.

So, if you're buying (or selling) EXPECT DELAYS when it comes to the appraisal.