Q: We agreed to buy a home, and the appraisal just came back $30,000 below our contract price. Our lender says it will only lend based on the lower number. We don’t want to lose the house, but we also don’t want to overpay, especially as I keep reading that the market is cooling. What are our options here? — Marcus

A: You have some leverage here, and in today’s cooling market, that leverage can lead to a lower price.

A low appraisal is not the disaster it feels like when you hear the news. It can be the starting point of a negotiation or could even be saving you from overpaying on a house.

Start with what an appraisal actually does. Your lender will finance a percentage of the home’s value, so a lower appraisal means the lender will only lend you that percentage of the appraised value instead of your agreed-upon purchase price. You will either need to agree with the seller to make up the difference or pay it out of pocket.

The first step is to ask the lender to reconsider the value if the appraisal overlooked a recent sale or got the details wrong. A reconsideration is not a long shot when you can point to specific comparable homes the appraiser missed.

If that doesn’t work, approach the seller and try to renegotiate the price down to the appraised value, or at least meet somewhere in the middle.

The seller needs to understand a hard truth: the next buyer will also order an appraisal and land on the same number.

With more homes on the market and buyers in short supply, a seller who refuses to follow the market will have a very difficult time selling the house. Since a bird in hand is often worth two in the bush, as the saying goes, your seller might as well sell it to you and get the closing over with at the appraised price.

And if none of that works, you look at your contract. Most financed purchases include an appraisal contingency, which lets you cancel and recover your deposit if the appraisal falls short. Read that provision closely and mind its deadline, because the protection only lasts for a set window.

If you waived that contingency to make your offer more attractive, or simply missed the deadline, your options narrow.

Because your deposit may be at stake, speak with a local real estate attorney to understand your options and their consequences.

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