Definition
An appraisal is a licensed appraiser's written opinion of what your home is worth on a specific date. Mortgage lenders order one before they'll fund a loan, because they don't want to lend more than the house can support if they ever had to take it back. The appraiser physically walks the property, notes its size, age and condition, then compares it to nearby homes that recently sold. For a homeowner selling the traditional way, the appraisal is a make-or-break checkpoint that sits between an accepted offer and an actual closing. If it comes in lower than the agreed price, the whole deal can wobble or collapse. Selling directly to a cash buyer bypasses this step entirely, since there's no lender requiring one.
Example
Denise accepted a $310,000 offer on her three-bedroom home in Columbus from a buyer using a conventional mortgage. Two weeks later the lender's appraisal came back at $289,000, and the buyer's loan amount shrank to match it. Denise had to choose between lowering her price, asking the buyer to bring an extra $21,000 in cash, or putting the house back on the market. She spent a stressful weekend running her own comps and concluded the appraiser had used two outdated sales from the far edge of her neighborhood. Her agent submitted a reconsideration request with three stronger comparables, but the lender only agreed to bump the value up by $4,000. In the end, Denise cut $15,000 off the price just to keep the deal alive, and closing was pushed back three weeks while the new numbers were processed. The experience taught her that an accepted offer isn't final until it survives the appraisal.