Thanks so much for your post - it's very helpful. I failed yesterday, after using learnappraisal. Couple quick questions:
- Will the AI student workbook be all I need, or do I need to buy/read the whole 13th edition?
- I'm thinking about taking the Residential exam just to be able to do "something" while I wait to study enough for the GA exam. I've done underwrition for a major financial institution, but even that didn't help.
Thanks in advance - Rob
Rob, I went cover-to-cover in the handbook for my first phase of study. It reopened my eyes to all of the material I had previously seen, but it was all in one place. I went to my nearest public library branch and got a private study room. Doing this took probably 3 sessions of 2-3 hours each. I put stickys on terms or concepts I felt that I might need to revisit. Then I went through each of my AI course textbooks one at a time with the solutions book right there so I could double check whether I was undertaking the problems appropriately. This reinforcement was crucial. I took 2-3 days of 2-3 hours on each course. At the end of it all I scheduled the exam for a Monday and went over all of the stickys on Saturday and Sunday until I was thoroughly comfortable doing the problems. All of this I did at the library. I think it is important to actually work many problems out rather than saying to yourself "I get it", because "getting" the concepts is not nearly enough for this test. This is a test of test problem solving, not being an appraiser. So you have to practice the problems. In the end, the area I was most uncertain about was cost approach problems. Whether to use current cost new, cost to replace or retrofit, etc., given different situations, breakdown method, etc. It is one area that I have never gotten comfortable with enough to be confident. Fortunately, there was only one or two of these on the test that were so deep as to trip me up (I think).
There are enough problems between the course texts and the handbook to get you ready.
One area I could have studied more in was USPAP. USPAP is tough to study because of the way it is written-it is not a textbook. It is like studying a zoning ordinance. It is drafted to be a reference text, not a study resource. The questions they conjured out of USPAP seemed like they came from the most obscure corners of the document. Nevertheless, it is all fair game, so any extra time you can spend on this is valuable. Remember, each question counts the same, whether is:
a.) calculating an equity yield rate based on a full page of raw data including every conceivable segmented square footage of an office building, year 0 (or was it year 1-wording is ambiguous) income, some ambiguous statements about expense sharing, raw mortgage information, info about income and expense growth, extraordinary expenditures in coming years, etc., etc. etc.
or
b.) whether or not each person who contributed on a report must sign the cover letter, certificatin, or both,
or
c.) whether and how long each person working on a report must keep the work file, or was it a copy of the workfile, or just an electronic copy, or is it just access to a copy, or is access to an electronic copy sufficient?
or
d.) identifying some laughably basic building component
*disclaimer*-non of these are ACTUAL test questions, but are representative of the range of question types whose presence on the exam are common knowledge*
I would make sure that I was getting the gimmes and USPAP questions right, so that any complicated income problem or cash equivalency problem-I think those are considered Sales Comparison Problems, actually-that I missed wasn't on top of the "easier" stuff.
As for the problems being like the work someone does every day, I suppose it is possible for someone somewhere, but not remotely like what I or any appraisers I have ever known do on a regular basis.
Finally, I think the 13th edition is something most people on this forum would tell you that you need to have on your bookshelf as a matter of professional practice, although not for test prep. It is the one accepted resource that anybody critiquing your work will go to for substantiation, and the one that you should go to for verification. However, it would not be a very efficient resource for test prep, in my opinion.
Good Luck!
