[biosurfer1]

Is it me or is $25,000 NOT that big of difference on a $405k appraisal...we are talking about ~5% difference between the two, sounds reasonable to me.

And whoever said they don't benefit from appraising low, you couldn't possibly be more wrong. Say they just went in and said yep, it's worth whatever the hell you want it to be and 6 months down the line you realize you hate the house and its worth less so you walk away. The bank will want to know why the house was appraised so high when it was clearly worth less.

Just because the appraisal came back lower than the OP wanted doesn't mean they didn't do their job. Sounds like anything less than the appraisal coming back at the offer price would have upset the OP. If the appraisers worked that way it would be useless to have appraisers at all.