Appraisal Matters

The ability to verify data is becoming harder and harder.  As appraisers, we must verify sale, capitalization rates and comparable rentals with one of the market participants.  This is becoming harder every day for many reasons:

Since many transactions are represented by Realtors, we rely upon them for data.  Many who were in the business have [...]

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“Past performance may not be indicative of future results. Then why is it OK for an appraiser to assume as much?  And if every appraisal used this declining market logic in determining value, how would our market or any market reverse course”
This whole sentence indicates why there is a problem right now.  Some otherwise fine people [...]

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This post makes me wonder about the whole “Dummies” Series that I have used to learn new things all the time.  I can’t believe they put this in writing!  Below is the post from a wonderful blog called the Soapbox.  The direct link is: http://soapbox.millersamuel.com/?p=398
Eileen
Commercial Grade is a post by John Cicero, MAI who provides [...]

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I have to admit that the whole mess on the residential side has been interesting to me, but has not impacted our firm because we no longer do residential appraisals.  The problem with appraiser independence is still a problem on our side too.
Our best mortgage clients are ones where we have NO contact with the [...]

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I’m a consumer so I understand that commercial appraisals are expensive for many people. We are generally the most expensive item for a loan and certainly expensive for many estates.  It is a great leap of faith for someone to order an appraisal and not know if a "value will be made."
Again, like the last [...]

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This is not scientific, but I do all the bids for our company.  In March, April and May commercial appraisal orders for lenders were WAY down.  Some weeks we got none, which was unusual given the last few years.  We are always very high in search engines so we get a lot of Broker requests.  [...]

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A property where supply is so low yet demand always seems to remain high has no downside, right? Guess again.
Ironically, unless they are trophy properties, they are frequently more difficult to sell.  Conventional financing vehicles, which often represent the vast majority of potential financing available, do not work because the properties usually don’t "appraise" for [...]

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Some jurisdictions require the petitioner in a tax appeal case to prove that a property is unfairly assessed in relation to other properties . We appraisers call this tax comparable analysis and it’s done on a price per square foot basis.
There are many problems with tax comps. It is not uncommon for one or [...]

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Too often, market participants rely on assessments as reflective of a commercial property’s market value. What could be easier than relying on the assessment as market value? The problem is too few market participants do not understand what is not included in the assessed value. Here are some of the most obvious and important omissions:

Assessments [...]

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We just started taking credit cards. Why? Because private individuals are desperate for appraisals, but don’t have the money to purchase one, we started to take credit cards so we could actually book private people.
We have a lot of partnership breakups, divorces and even hard money lenders who really need a loan, but [...]

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We had a fire, had to move our office. This of course was MUCH harder than anticipated with telephone transfer issues, computer problems and just the hassle of moving too quick. We’re back now and doing OK. Staying on top of things was hard but life comes at you in circles. [...]

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Right now, lenders want proper ties that have no problems at all. If there is a slight functional problem or any creative backend financing. Calls from reviewers are up too because the criteria for lending is tight for not just for the person.
There are lots of special financing deals. Cash back [...]

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Bar and restaurant appraisals are interesting assignments. Unless you are going for an SBA loan, the lender only wants to lend on the "bricks and sticks." They are not interested in the bar equipment (AKA FF&E), business value or good will. The hardest part of this type of assignment is how to [...]

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23676448/
Where exactly IS the bottom?
Eileen

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Oh, there are so many things I could say about this. It actually is a smart business move, but goodbye to independence in the residential field! Consolidation has come to most industries, has it finally come to ours? We do commercial and I believe it will be years before something like this hits us, [...]

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We had a great dinner with Jim MacCrate, MAI who graciously gave us three hours of his valuable time while visiting Baltimore to teach a class. I had met Jim while taking two classes and I have been impressed with his honesty, knowledge and desire to give back to the community.
Although court work has [...]

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As always, Mr.Mac Crate is right on the mark about our industry. This article is one of the best out there and we are now having a terrible time with being honest and actually saying a market is declining. Why is that? It’s because the lender’s still want to make loans. [...]

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Well, I’m a geek. But even a geek can hate computers. My server is DOWN. I am forced to just clean and wait for my computer people to fix it.
Anyone else have a love/hate relationships with computers? Why so hard? How come I can’t leave Microsoft for Apple?
Eileen

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Well, I made it here first. There is going to be two of us at this blog and maybe more in the future. We are a husband & wife team with two very different approaches to commercial valuation and life in general, who always seem to come to the same location in the [...]

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