Appraisal Matters

Blog of ValuStar Commercial Appraisers and Consultants

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Entries Tagged as 'Soapbox Moments'

“Beware the Appraisal” Shows Why We Are In This Mess

July 4th, 2008 · 1 Comment

“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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Tags: General Comments · Soapbox Moments

Holy Moly…I Had To Reprint This From The Soapbox

July 3rd, 2008 · No Comments

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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Tags: Current News · General Comments · Market Data · Soapbox Moments

A Sign of the Times

June 13th, 2008 · No Comments

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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Tags: General Comments · Soapbox Moments

Control of Appraisers just around the corner

February 16th, 2008 · No Comments

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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Tags: Current News · General Comments · Soapbox Moments

“Comp Runs”

February 15th, 2008 · No Comments

We are constantly being asked for "comp runs." Lenders and buyers don’t want to spend money for an appraiser’s expertise. They want to KNOW what a value will be before engaging our services. Although I can appreciate that the cost of an appraisal fee is significant, we just cannot take assignments with [...]

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Tags: Advice · Soapbox Moments

Yet Another Upside-Down Borrower

February 11th, 2008 · No Comments

In this market, it is getting pretty tough out there for people. On the commercial side, many loans have balloon payments and the owners NEED their values to keep rising. Right now values are at best flat. Over and over I see owner occupied real estate investors who banked on their values [...]

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Tags: Advice · Market Data · Owner Occupied Properties · Soapbox Moments

Straight from MacCrate

February 6th, 2008 · No Comments

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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Tags: Current News · General Comments · Soapbox Moments

I mostly hate computers

February 4th, 2008 · 1 Comment

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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Tags: General Comments · Soapbox Moments

Separating Business from Real Estate

February 2nd, 2008 · No Comments

So often when we appraise properties where the business is tightly held with the real estate, it is very difficult to separate the business from the real estate. This is most common in restaurants, bars, marinas and hospitality properties. When a business is dependent on its real estate to function (an office could [...]

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Tags: Advice · Appraisal Theory · Owner Occupied Properties · Small Commercial Properties · Soapbox Moments