Not completely. There is a difference in an appraiser's value estimate being off a percentage or two on a home costing hundreds of thousands of dollars and flat out fraudulent price inflating.

You have to remember that the value that an appraiser gives is just one persons estimate and who is to say that an appraiser can't be off a few percent? I feel like I am good at what I do, but it would be crazy for me to sit here and tell you that I know what every single property is worth down to the dollar.

Like I said, if a house is selling for $510,000 and I thought it was worth $500,000, but I have sales of similar property from $480,000 to $530,000 it would not be fraud or price inflating for me to concur with the price that the open market set because it is within a reasonable range (+/-2%) of the sales price and I have comparable sales supporting the sales price. I would just be agreeing with the market price in this situation. It is a possibility that my estimate was 2% low and that the market price was correct.

Now, If I only had sales of comparable property ranging from $480,000 to $507,000 and I still wanted to call it $510,000 that would be wrong.