Choosing A Real Estate Appraiser

Choosing the Right Appraiser for You

Verify Licensure and Certification

• Confirm the appraiser holds a State Certified Residential or State Certified General license for your property type. Trainee licenses indicate less experience and require you to interview their supervising appraiser to confirm their credentials as well.

Ask About Their Experience

• How long have they been an appraiser? Ask about their background appraising properties similar to yours in your local area. Do they have extensive experience with your property type and location? An appraiser should have proven competency with your property type and neighborhood. This typically requires appraising certain property types many times over many years. The appraisal profession is quite complex, and it typically takes 10-15 years of continued professional growth to become a fully competent appraiser.

Evaluate Education and Training

• Inquire about their appraisal education and credentials. Designations (SRA, AI-RRS, MAI, etc) from renowned organizations like the Appraisal Institute demonstrate a higher commitment to excellence.

Check References and Reputation

• Gather appraiser recommendations from professionals like lenders, Realtors, attorneys, etc., and ask for local references to confirm reliability. Check for online reviews from Google My Business or Yelp. An appraiser's reputation is telling.

Communicate Your Needs

• Voice any special considerations upfront so the appraiser can assess their ability to meet them. Do not assume an appraiser with broad licensing is an expert in every property variety.

Understand Who Will Perform the Service Provided

• Confirm who will physically observe/inspect your property and who will write the report. Some appraisal firms utilize one person to perform the site work and another to write the report. This might be more efficient for them, but would it be best for you? Do not accept a trainee to only perform the work unless you are comfortable with the appraiser. If having an experienced appraiser perform the observation/inspection and write the report is important to you, explicitly request that a State Certified appraiser handle those duties rather than a trainee. Do not assume a Certified appraiser will be assigned unless confirmed upfront.

Compare Cost

• While fees vary based on many factors, the price should not be your foremost concern. A cheap appraisal could sacrifice quality and you often get what you paid to receive. Focus first on competence and experience.

How Do They Report the Appraisal Results

• Ask them how they specifically plan to report the results of the appraisal. Appraisals can be written or verbal, with the majority of the appraisals reported via a written format. Written formats include narrative reports and form report styles. Narrative appraisal reports are typically utilized for commercial valuations. The majority of residential appraisal reports utilize form format which features templated layouts. When interviewing an appraiser for purposes like estate planning, trusts, probate, or divorce, ensure the appraiser does not simply default to using a lending-focused form intended for mortgage transactions. Though seemingly convenient, these forms may not facilitate suitable analyses or capture details meaningful to your intended use. Politely inquire which variety of appraisal forms will be utilized and verify it allows the flexibility to comprehensively address any unique considerations relevant to your non-lending situation.

How Do They Perform the Market Analysis

• Appraisers employ various analytical techniques such as Paired Sales, Grouped Sales, and Regression to conduct their Local Market Analysis. It is important to understand the methodology being applied and ensure the appraiser actively performs the analytics instead of relying on intuition or second-hand data alone. Competent appraisers should be able to furnish visual graphs of their statistical computations within the appraisal report, not just reference market statistics copied from indirect sources. Seek confirmation upfront that substantive modeling will be conducted to quantitatively support conclusions rather than conjecture or anecdotes driving the valuation opinion.

Take your time vetting appraiser options before entrusting anyone with valuing one of your largest assets. Following these best practices helps secure an appraiser well-equipped for your unique needs.