Appraisals for Owners – Not Just for Banks Anymore

People that I meet often want to ‘help’ me get more business. That’s great and I appreciate it. Most of them think that Realtors or brokers order the appraisals, or have some hand in where the appraisal order goes. However, I rarely receive work from residential Realtors. If a commercial broker engages me, it’s generally when they have an ownership interest in the property.

But, to my point…….Residential property owners and commercial property owners should be engaging appraisers at different intervals over the time they own the property. However, most only deal with an appraiser when they want a loan, the bank orders an appraisal. Then, there is apprehension on the what the results of the appraisal will be.

Call me a control freak, but I want to know the most information about my property at all times, particularly before I go into a loan or selling situation. When I sell my personal home, I order an appraisal from a residential appraiser I don’t know as well as a home inspection from a quality home inspector. I provide no information to the appraiser, other than a list of updates and when they occurred (i.e. roof replace 2009). For the home inspector, I tell them ‘go to town’! I want to know all the problems ahead of time so I can fix them, not fix them, or make plans to fix them. When we have a showing, I leave the printed color home inspection on table and tell my Realtor to tell the buyers’ Realtors to please review it. That usually takes the option for negotiations post-contract off the table when the buyer has their inspection.  As for the appraisal, that’s my information to know and analyze. Never appraise your own house or property, obviously. You want an unbiased opinion by a professional working in your market everyday.

For a commercial property owner, a commercial appraiser is going to provide the most recent sales, rents, vacancy and cap rates that you can use to plan how you are going to leverage your property. The more information you can get, the better off you are. Then, share the appraisal with your broker and discuss pricing strategies in addition to the research they do.

In summary, an appraiser will provide a value at a snapshot in time. The more information you have, the better prepared you’ll be for the future. Don’t wait until you need to sell the property to find out vacancy on your property type is 20% and no one is leasing or buying.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us and ask questions. This is what we do.