I can't understand why they like to appraise homes so low. they benefit nothing from it. I complained about this here some time ago when I try to refi.
Chris, you are not the only one. My home is worth over 600k, I know because I jsut sold (opened escrow) a similar home half a block up the street for 54K more then that just 2 weeks ago. the bastard appraiser appraised it at 370k and report it with all sort of things wrong with the roof and a crack on the concrete pad on the side of the house. He think it may be structural.
Since there wasn't enough sold houses in the area to accurately judge the price of our home and he had to use houses down the hill ( some were short sales and foreclosures). My lender and I were, put it lightly, bend out of shape over it. He said they do it all the time so there isn't anything we can do about it. it took over two months but we finally got it after kicking and screaming with our bank.