SugarStone Appraisals, LLC

1 Star due to the integrity of the work by appraiser John Olson. Not only did he ding me 200 square living feet , basing off an appraisal I had done 2 years ago when I first bought my property... but after I tried to fight it, he stated he measured each area twice, which is an absolute LIE as I watched him barely even measure areas. DO NOT GO WITH THEM. Absolutely obsurd!!!! He was maybe there for 13 mins plus chatted for like 7. OBSURD.
Jul 9th, 2021

These morons are the least competent people I can ever imagine. They took off $10,000 for the roof that had two years life left but didn't bother to mention that when they wrote the appraisal.When I called because the buyer asked me how much was left in the roof life this appraiser Steve said less than two years and he had deducted $10,000 for a new roof. When I asked why that was not mentioned in the appraisal they did a great back pedal. I asked them to reissue the report which they did. My deal with the buyer was they would pay the appraisal minus a fixed discount as we didn't need a broker. Clearly it cost us $10,000 minus the roof repair cost which we have hard quotes of $2900. So they cost us $7100 and unlike them I didn't go back on my word to the buyer.I asked SugarStone to make this right or at least return their fee. Their answer was that the roof issue was in the report. B.S. it was only in the revised report that I had to ask for after discovering their mistake. Instead of admitting it they insisted in a clumsy cover- up. Katy who answers the phones was wonderful but powerless to deal with the dishonest appraiser she has to work with. Don't give your business to these people who not only are slipshod but lie and refuse to own up to their mistakes.
Jan 31st, 2019

This company appraised my unit in a way that left me no choice but to back out of the mortgage. I was doing a cash out refinance which is more complicated than a purchase where the appraiser can miraculously appraise the property to the contract price. The unit was a condominium. Condominiums are generally easy to appraise because there are typically multiple units that are the same. While this is a blessing, it is also a curse because a mistake in the appraisal becomes obvious and there is a lot less than can be attributed to the appraisers "opinion." The condominium association in question has 240 units where 79 units are larger Type 1 unit and 161 are smaller Type 2 unit. The appraiser was aware that there are two types of units. The problem was that my unit was larger Type 1 unit and there was only one sale approximately a year prior to the appraisal. So the appraiser took some of the smaller less expensive units as comparables. She attempted to put an adjustment for the size but she did not do it properly based on the 30 year history of the property. She only put 11K adjustment where for most of the 30 years (exception being 2012 when the market bottomed and the units were selling at half the price that they sell at today) the larger units have been around 30K more. Additionally, she decided that the unit that sold a year ago was in better shape than all other comparables. Per the pictures of the unit which are still available on the internet, it had nothing special like granite countertops for example. I think she was trying to support her assumed adjustment better and was looking for a way to diminish the value of the single comparable from a year ago to make it fit her model of how much more it should be than the smaller units. Finally, market went up 10% from the previous year and no market time adjustment was added. Result is that she shorted the appraisal about 20K which is about 12%. I contacted them and they were willing to look at the additional information I provided but said that the request has to come from the bank. The bank, however, was not willing to bring it up to their attention and kept telling me that I need to provide better comparables. They couldnt understand that the problem happened because there were not enough sales of Type 1 units and therefore not enough comparables. I wasnt going to pawn my unit at 90 cents on the dollar so I backed out. This appraisal, resulted in me backing out of the mortgage, ruined my relationship with the bank who was not willing to bring my concerns to the attention of the appraiser, and Im out their $525 appraisal fee. I contacted them to see if they are at least willing to refund the appraisal fee and they just ignored me. I definitely dont recommend them.
Dec 20th, 2018

This company appraised my unit in a way that left me no choice but to back out of the mortgage. I was doing a cash out refinance which is more complicated than a purchase where the appraiser can miraculously appraise the property to the contract price. The unit was a condominium. Condominiums are generally easy to appraise because there are typically multiple units that are the same. While this is a blessing, it is also a curse because a mistake in the appraisal becomes obvious and there is a lot less than can be attributed to the appraiser's "opinion." The condominium association in question has 240 units where 79 units are larger Type 1 unit and 161 are smaller Type 2 unit. The appraiser was aware that there are two types of units. The problem was that my unit was larger Type 1 unit and there was only one sale approximately a year prior to the appraisal. So the appraiser took some of the smaller less expensive units as comparables. She attempted to put an adjustment for the size but she did not do it properly based on the 30 year history of the property. She only put 11K adjustment where for most of the 30 years (exception being 2012 when the market bottomed and the units were selling at half the price that they sell at today) the larger units have been around 30K more. Additionally, she decided that the unit that sold a year ago was in better shape than all other comparables. Per the pictures of the unit which are still available on the internet, it had nothing special like granite countertops for example. I think she was trying to support her assumed adjustment better and was looking for a way to diminish the value of the single comparable from a year ago to make it fit her model of how much more it should be than the smaller units. Finally, market went up 10% from the previous year and no market time adjustment was added. Result is that she shorted the appraisal about 20K which is about 12%. I contacted them and they were willing to look at the additional information I provided but said that the request has to come from the bank. The bank, however, was not willing to bring it up to their attention and kept telling me that I need to provide better comparables. They couldn't understand that the problem happened because there were not enough sales of Type 1 units and therefore not enough comparables. I wasn't going to pawn my unit at 90 cents on the dollar so I backed out.  This appraisal, resulted in me backing out of the mortgage, ruined my relationship with the bank who was not willing to bring my concerns to the attention of the appraiser, and I'm out their $525 appraisal fee. I contacted them to see if they are at least willing to refund the appraisal fee and they just ignored me. I definitely don't recommend them.
Oct 1st, 2018