Appraisal services for Seattle and King County homeowners

Here are the top 7 reasons why WA homeowners call on Cognizant:

  1. Get a pre-listing appraisal (whether you're using an agent or selling the home on your own)
  2. Challenge property tax assessments
  3. To lower your mortgage payments by removing PMI
  4. Reinstate your Home Equity Line of Credit (or HELOC)
  5. Verify a different appraiser's report
  6. In the case of a WA divorce, when real estate property needs to be divided
  7. Settle an estate in WA by determining the true market value of real estate in question

Own a house in or near Seattle, WA and need help determining the price of it?
Contact Cognizant.

We at Cognizant understand the particular needs of a customer looking for appraisal services. Our business practices and reporting formats are familiar to our business clients like lenders, attorneys, and accountants. But as a consumer,you can expect extra guidance and explanations through the appraisal process to more fully understand what we do and how we document our findings.

For Sale By Owner/Pre-Listing Services

Since you have an emotional attachment to your house, it's often very hard to be objective about it. Professional appraisers, like the ones at Cognizant, are objective. We'll tell you what you need to know, not just what you want to hear. In addition to helping you set a realistic price to sell at so your home will attract interested buyers, a professional appraisal is very valuable as a negotiating tool once you have an interested buyer. The appraisal is something concrete to show your buyer. An appraisal is an independent third party's opinion of your home's price -- not just how much your home is worth. Interested buyers assume that you have an emotional attachment to your house and will be more likely to give credibility to an accomplished appraiser's value conclusion than yours.

PMI Removal Appraisals

PMI stands for Private Mortgage Insurance. A popular way to cut expenses for homeowners is to get the PMI removed from their mortgage loan, thus saving them money on their monthly payments. Once your mortgage loan amount is less than 80% of the value of your property, in most cases you can apply to a lender to have the PMI canceled from your loan, which will make your monthly payments go down. Cognizant is experienced in helping customers just like you get rid of unneeded PMI insurance.

Challenge Tax Assessment

Your local tax assessor may have your home overvalued if your house is not appreciating as much as other properties nearby. That only means you are most likely paying more taxes than you should. Since your property assessment may likely go up again in the next period, the earlier you take care of a matter like this, the better. Getting a professional appraisal from Cognizant is your #1 weapon when challenging your property tax assessment.

Was your HELOC recently frozen?

Your lender may just decide to automatically freeze your home equity line of credit (HELOC) if your property is in a declining area -- even if your specific property has not declined in value. This can be be harmful to your credit score since it may appear as though that credit line is maxed out, and also annoying from a cash flow angle. An appraisal from Cognizant can help you reinstate your HELOC.

Do You Need Field and Desktop Appraisal Review Services?

Have you just gotten a copy of your appraisal and you would wish to have a professional double-check it for efficiency or do you want a second opinion without the expense and delay of waiting for a whole new appraisal? In a field review we will go out and check the subject and comps. If you need it immediately, we'll provide you with a desk review and verify as many facts as we can using online data sources as well as our own files.

Need a retrospective review of an appraisal? We can help you with that Even though this is typically requested by banks, you may wish to exploit this service if you suspect mortgage fraud related to your house.