Appraising is like a minimum wage job.

[Trihard]

Today I woke up at 7 am in order to take some comp photos for a rural FHA order from earlier this week. I left my house at 8 am. This assignment was rural and 35 miles away from my house. The comps were directly 3-4 miles away in each direction, north, south, east and west. After stumbling around dirt roads for 2 hours, I finally got the comp photos that I needed. It took me another hour to get back to my office. At this point it was already 11:30. I went to lunch and had another inspection at 2pm. The owner showed up 15 minutes late and this was a complex assignment on a lake. It took me about an hour at the property to get all the info I needed including measuring the property. By the time I got back to the office it was already 4 pm and I pulled comps. After getting stuck in the weeds and looking around the MLS for something similar it was already 5:30 pm. Since its Friday before memorial day I said screw it, ill finish this on Tuesday. I spent all day today working without being able to bill anything new. Appraising is a minimum wage job.

 

[gorillakimchi]

How much is your assignment? Fast food workers get paid $20/hour in Los Angeles...

 

[Overimprovement]

I always charged more for rural properties, but always preferred easier ones close by. Even after adjusting for my extra time, gas, and vehicle mileage (depreciation), more local ones were still more profitable. I ended up only doing rural ones for my good clients, as no one wanted to pay what the assignments were really worth time-wise.

Also, for 4 years now, I always have my list of potential comps printed out. Once the inspection is completed, I pick which ones I think are best, and grab those while I am already at the subject site. Especially if rural, this can easily save me over an hour of time.

 

[Elliott]

What's 'lunch?' Set your first appointment for 1pm and your second one for 1:30, you'll be back by 3pm, 3:30 at the latest.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

I try to ID 4 or 5 sales, and go to the most promising ones first, so that If satisfied that the first 3 are going to be the best, I don't photo the rest. I quit at that point. I often have 200 or more miles in a day, but usually average good time because it is very rural. Appraising in a town growing as fast as Fayetteville - Springdale - Rogers - Bentonville is slower for me. For some projects I may take two trips. One for the inspection and one on Sunday afternoon when traffic is lightest and most of the commercial buildings are not operating.

 

[Tom D]

big urban, big money. lot of sales, usually all within .3 mile and the little row house is less than30 minutes away. right now it's fine for helping to pay the bills, cause the lean years eat up your extra saved money. so long term, minimum wage with no retirement savings. but it is a great non full time retirement job. doesn't help you younger appraisers, but nobody ever told me about the lean years and using savings story.
rural appraisers are like the storm troopers landing on the beach.

 

[Tom4value]

Today I woke up at 7 am in order to take some comp photos for a rural FHA order from earlier this week. I left my house at 8 am. This assignment was rural and 35 miles away from my house. The comps were directly 3-4 miles away in each direction, north, south, east and west. After stumbling around dirt roads for 2 hours, I finally got the comp photos that I needed. It took me another hour to get back to my office. At this point it was already 11:30. I went to lunch and had another inspection at 2pm. The owner showed up 15 minutes late and this was a complex assignment on a lake. It took me about an hour at the property to get all the info I needed including measuring the property. By the time I got back to the office it was already 4 pm and I pulled comps. After getting stuck in the weeds and looking around the MLS for something similar it was already 5:30 pm. Since its Friday before memorial day I said screw it, ill finish this on Tuesday. I spent all day today working without being able to bill anything new. Appraising is a minimum wage job.

YOU are making it a minimum wage job! Why are you driving 35 miles armed with only a subject address?
I do all of my data collection before the car leaves the garage. You have an address and if a purchase, an MLS listing of the subject. You have everything you need to pull comps. Pull a lot so if the inspection reveals something you didn’t know beforehand, you have a variety of comps to choose from. Something really odd-ball? Bring a tablet so you have access to the MLS in the field.

Bottom line, there really is no reason why you should be making 2 trips, one for inspection and one for taking comp pictures. There you just tripled your hourly income. Your welcome.

 

[ucbruin]

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

Nope, it doesn't help.

T'is what it t'is. But what does help is to either plan on exiting the biz, or double down and invest in the necessary education to up your game to commercial or specialized work. And that involves not only the tools, the training, but the marketing strategy. And that marketing strategy means you will have to leave your comfort zone, stop being the introvert you may be, and market yourself in person.

At age 42, I did not want to change careers after 20 years of being a petroleum and engineering geologist. It is interesting work. From soils lab to consulting on dams, water resources, magnetics and other geophysical methods, even publishing in World Oil and other professional papers, to field geologist, it was and still is my first love. But it starved me out finally and I moved on. I cannot regret it as much as I want to. I've made a living in appraising for 30 years now. I will leave earth damaged but unbroken. I survived.

 

[sputnam]

Appraising is a minimum wage job.

If your earnings as an appraiser are similar to mininum wage, you are doing it wrong.