Is it a single family residential or a duplex,triplex,quad?
If it's the latter they go by more of cash flowing numbers.Rental that's a SFR they will go by sq ft values.
In most GAR Ga contracts there is an appraisal contingency that is either checked or unchecked or you can add a special stip or addendum to the contract.
Yes if it doesn't appraise and there is no appraisal contingency the buyer would have to make up the difference to close.I can almost tell you this never happens.Most of the time buyers NEVER have any extra money and if they did they are not going to overpay for a property UNLESS it's something like land in a commercial area which will be worth more later on when it's redeveloped.
In the GAR contract is stipulates usually that seller retains earnest money and considers it 100 percent liquidated damages.It does this so the seller can't keep the earnest money AND sue (double-dip)
If the seller still wanted that option they would strike out that wording in our standard forms.
What happens most of the time is if does not appraise the seller can reduce the price to the appraised price to close or they can terminate the contract.Even if there was no appraisal contingency the buyer would try to find another out in the contract to keep there earnest money.
The market are down in alot of places.Why does a seller fella magical fairy is going to show up and creat a HIGH appraisal for the market just to make a deal happen?
If anything with the losses bansk have taken more and more an independant 3rd party appraiser is used and given instructions to be conservative in value because of the markets.
If the contract is laready written up have the appraisal completed and go through options from there.