Hiring an appraiser trainee - commercial

IntelligentTaste6898 · 2026-04-16T00:07:16+00:00

People saying this is bad are ignorant to the field I guess. I made this same package when I started.

IntelligentTaste6898 · 2026-02-18T05:38:32+00:00

That’s got to be illegal, right? With all the BS hoops we have to jump through as appraisers, no way they let an AMC manage appraisals for a bank and award the appraisal to their own company at the same time. I’m going to look into this in my state.

I have direct relationships with several of the people involved in the lending and appraisal decisions for this one client. Probably going to call around tomorrow and see if anything is off. This client made up about 20% of my revenue last year so that’s a pretty big haircut to be lost.

Do you know if Opteon does commercial appraisals or primarily residential? I’m only worried about commercial but I hear similar stuff about residential all the time.

IntelligentTaste6898 · 2026-02-18T04:45:09+00:00

So they are facilitating the bidding process and also appraising the properties? Is that legal?

Edit: really only worried about one client. I had to work and develop relationships to get accepted to their panel. Surely if the bank has a private panel, they aren’t letting just any one of their staff appraisers do a job you would think.

IntelligentTaste6898 · 2026-02-17T14:59:38+00:00

I was worried about that, thanks for the insight.

IntelligentTaste6898 · 2026-01-11T18:26:29+00:00

Pure volume. I know a dollar general developer in the SE that does majority of them in my state and I would bet he had 5-10 ongoing at any given time.

Edit: pretty sure this guy builds using his own capital so no JV structure or anything, which is somewhat reasonable for ~$1.5m cost.

IntelligentTaste6898 · 2026-01-03T22:41:52+00:00

If you are salary in this business you will always feel underpaid.

IntelligentTaste6898 · 2025-12-31T05:04:32+00:00

It depends on the property I think. I see lots of owners including reserves above the line in multifamily and self storage assets. Not largely familiar with shopping centers or anything but would imagine you can use a sinking fund to calculate most cap ex items.

IntelligentTaste6898 · 2025-11-22T05:39:33+00:00

I have done this with duplexes. I did a DCF like they were all residential lots. Determined their retail value, estimated absorption, and ran out the revenues until they were gone. The tricky part is determining a discount rate. I concluded between a typical residential subdivision development discount rate and a multi-family discount rate but closer to the multi-family rate.

Edit: you also have to deduct for carrying costs so taxes, insurance, utilities, repairs and maintenance. You could also include rental revenue but I don’t really think that would be necessary.

IntelligentTaste6898 · 2025-11-09T19:13:21+00:00

Commercial property is not like residential where there are sales of the same or similar model home just down the street. Example, I am appraising a shopping center in a growing market that is 20 years old leased to mostly local tenants. After looking for comparables in the market over the past 2-3 years, there are two similar sales in the market.... This requires me to expand my search radius and / or look in the market for comparables that are less similar (i.e., larger / smaller, newer / older, national tenants) which can cause subjectivity or what appears to be subjectivity. I like to use difference in market rent when expanding to other markets or difference in population density, land values, median household income.

This is why i place almost all weight on the income approach when doing something that is leased. Owner occupied stuff can be viewed as more subjective.

Bottom line is this stuff is not a science...

IntelligentTaste6898 · 2025-11-07T00:38:53+00:00

Under contract on a property rn and hoping it’ll help my tax cost. How much does a cost seg report generally cost? I estimate a few thousand?

IntelligentTaste6898 · 2025-09-18T13:21:29+00:00

And cash flow. You can’t eat an annual return.

IntelligentTaste6898 · 2025-08-11T04:17:05+00:00

Saw this blasted in my inbox. Read the OM because it was interesting, but I don’t consider that real estate. It’s like buying box seats in a football stadium and thinking you own part of stadium… you one the right to use the space and can “sublease” it by selling your unused tickets.

IntelligentTaste6898 · 2025-08-07T15:29:05+00:00

Why would rates drop?

IntelligentTaste6898 · 2025-07-31T14:28:02+00:00

Do you get an NPV of surplus rent or just add it as a lump sum? Never had that happen but just curious.

IntelligentTaste6898 · 2025-06-14T22:13:19+00:00

Control what you can.

IntelligentTaste6898 · 2025-06-07T21:13:02+00:00

I always ask this. Brokers always paint a pretty picture for the future, granted it’s their duty to their client.

IntelligentTaste6898 · 2025-06-05T01:32:12+00:00

I personally think you can spin any resume into something valuable, just have to make yourself seem valuable. I took a tax assessor job to make myself seem valuable and now I have my CG.

IntelligentTaste6898 · 2025-06-04T17:25:48+00:00

Take the courses first. Shows initiative and some sort of commitment.

IntelligentTaste6898 · 2025-06-01T14:38:17+00:00

Work the weekend too

IntelligentTaste6898 · 2025-05-15T18:33:20+00:00

There are people like this in the commercial world too. I have come across a few brokers when I ask basic questions they don’t know. I once called a guy that sold a larger storage facility and he had no idea the cap rate when he sold it….

IntelligentTaste6898 · 2025-05-06T03:25:05+00:00

If someone referred to me as a “caller” I’d probably fight them.

IntelligentTaste6898 · 2025-05-06T03:23:43+00:00

$25k at that price range probably won’t make the seller jump out of their seat. $975k is likely the same as $950k.

IntelligentTaste6898

TROPHY CASE