The Seattle housing market is even crazier than usual lately, with houses generally going 10-20% over list price. Everyone seems to be offering major escalations with waived appraisal contingencies - we've lost two offers already because another party waived appraisal but we had them beat on price. My wife and I are looking and are nervous about waiving the appraisal. We have about $50k to cover any gap, so we might just keep going with a low appraisal addendum instead but I'm curious what others have been seeing in their recent purchases when appraisal comes back? Are appraisals coming in close to your final purchase price?

If it helps, we're looking at 3-bed 2-bath places in Renton, mainly, that list for between $575k and $700k.