Envision Appraisal Corp

I am not the one to write reviews but am forced to write this one. Brandon Mai was our appraiser for our house. In short if your bank gets envision corp and Brandon Mai as your appraiser run in the opposite direction. Every effort will be made by them to under-appraise and scrap the deal.
Mar 10th, 2021

An appraisal on our house that was done by Brandon Mia, doing business as Envision Appraisal Corp, after being randomly chosen by Bank of America was not only clearly wrong but biased toward some unknown motivation. The initial appraisal was done on October 25th and immediately was contested by our agent and the buyers realtor. Reevaluation on the property value was requested by the lender, Bank of America. Brandon delayed and a revised appraisal was finally submitted on November 22. The only changes he made were to add more comments but basically stated only why his first appraisal was correct. The glaring error in the appraisal is that it shows the house has only 3 baths, and this was used to choose comps. The house has clearly 4 full bathrooms. The appraisal counted the value of the 1700 sq ft completed basement with it's own private entrance and au pair unit at $50,000 with no explanation where the number came from, as none of the comps used had a basement. Several articles were supplied to the Bank by the realtors for both the buyer and seller and forwarded to the appraiser that shows a below grade finished basement should be valued at a minimum of 50% per square foot of the value of the above grade square footage. The house above ground is 2528 Sq Ft and again, plus 1700 Sq Ft below ground. The appraiser valued the above ground Sq footage at $873 per Sq Ft and the basement at less than $30 per Sq Ft . Both the buyers and sellers realtor live in the Rose Garden area of San Jose, where our house is located. They believed some of the comps the appraiser included should not have been. And comps that should have been included would have greatly increased the appraised value of the house. This information was forwarded to Brandon before he made the 2nd appraisal but resulted in an amended appraisal with no change to the comps. Another clear error is that Brandon incorrectly states that the kitchen in the basement is not permitted but one of the city permits shows that there were 2 ranges approved, one for each kitchen on the first floor and basement. He also stated in the appraisal The second kitchen is not permitted and is atypical for this area, and this kitchen has no effect on the subjects value or marketability. It seems inept or a conscious effort to say there is no value for a full finished 850 Sq Ft Au Pair unit in the house, with its own kitchen, bathroom and its own separate entrance to the outside, The bank, based on the appraisal, said that the gas range in the basement had to be removed and the gas line capped. There are no gas ranges in the house! The bank sent a second appraiser out to look into this issue and the Bank of America subsequently ignored Brandons error and let the basement stay as it was. Throughout the appraisal Brandon makes negative comments to support his low market value. All parties agreed he clearly has no knowledge of the Rose Garden or the value of University Ave. He tries to justify his statement that the only reason the buyers were willing to pay more than the appraisal value is the current bidding war market in this area. However, he did not research that our house has been on the market for over 1 years, with NO offers except this one buyer. There is no bidding war. During the appraisal he was very carefree and even asked twice if he could share some of the champagne we were enjoying with our realtor. This was recorded on home cameras. I am sending a letter to the Bureau of Real Estates Appraisers asking for his license to be revoked based on this and other appraisals he did in the same careless manner as stated in other Yelp reviews. In answer to Brandon Mai's response below. He clearly misses the point that his appraisal has errors, and incorrectly states he was not notified by the bank or buyer. The Bureau of Appraisals now has the documentation, including all the communications from the bank to him, the buyers realtor and the permits. They will see the house and then review the appraisal.
Jul 4th, 2019