Certified Residential vs Certified General

[RCA]

FWIW, I am almost solely a commercial appraiser and an MAI I do measure my properties, though.

I've seen enough bad work from all types of appraisers - from trainees to CRs to CGs and MAIs - to not attempt to defend any appraisers except myself. I recall discussing with an MAI (who used to post on AF fairly frequently) that said that if two approaches are more than 10% apart, something has gone wrong. That could be true for some properties and in more active markets, but in my market, there are many types of properties where that 10% range between approaches cannot be done, unless the appraiser does decide to force the numbers. I have completed appraisals with 15% - 20% ranges between the approaches - not ideal, but that is what the market is suggesting and sometimes that does, in itself, justifiably cause one to revisit the other approaches. That isn't being a clever magician, but digging deeper into the numbers and finding that the initial path might not be the correct one.

I'm a big believer that you end up with the types of clients that suit your style. I've heard others say that appraising is a political job, and maybe it is to them. They will attract a greater portion of clients that pick up the phone or send emails to work the appraisers over on the values. But bias isn't exclusive to the MAI realm.

My commercial experience goes back 15-25 years. So, I don't have recent experience. However, I must consider that with all the new and updated software, much of the old work done in Excel is likely automated, thereby reducing the MAI's ability to manipulate. Maybe.

Commercial Appraisal has never really interested me as much as residential appraisal. It is very detailed and structured, with very little statistics, nothing exciting. At least not the way it was handled when I worked with it. I think it could be more interesting if they did a better job of dealing with risk, e.g., the probability of Black Swan events, which no longer seem to exhibit that Black Swan character. And residential is only interesting to me in the way I handle it - with a lot of statistical analysis and detail. What are you going to do with a 15-story office/retail building in San Francisco? It's a lot of income calculations - maybe 45 rentals with all kinds of lease terms and sundry costs. It's hellishly boring work. A grind. I knew appraisers that did almost nothing but Motels in California. It seems that was all they were interested in. Or Hotels - usually in multiple states. Or Industrial. Or whatever - there are very many specialities of course.

 

[George Hatch]

I almost always measure and I often double check off the overheads. I also almost always do interior floorplans and site plans with observed setbacks, terraces, street frontages, etc. But then again most of my buildings are under 30,000sf. I sometimes catch errors in the public records entries.

I know a lot of CGs don't measure and I attribute that to their user expectations. I don't think any of my users actually require it but I choose to continue anyway as a matter of personal discretion.

I don't attempt to tweak the approaches in order to move them closer. I do use big differences as a prompt to check my work, though.

I don't recall ever seeing an SRA or MAIs work in a mortgage-related appraisal where it appeared they didn't actually know what they were doing. Hardly any where they were sloppy, either. If there's a problem with one of their reports it was either just a garden variety error with their assumptions or (sadly) a deliberate untruth in advocacy of a client's desired outcome. But that's how most of the problem appraisals occur across the entire spectrum of practice. A few of them are errors (I've made my share) and the comparatively rare bad actor where someone had to work at it to make the untruth look reasonable.

But then when we get to the contentious conservation easements and right-of-way and unique property types that's where we're going to run into competency issues because after a certain point we need to call in the specialists.

 

[RCA]

BTW: How about this? I asked ChatGPT to give me an estimate of the probability of a nuclear war in the next 5 years:

ChatGPT: "If you want a single defensible statement for the next five years, I would summarize it as: On current public evidence and simple hazard assumptions, a reasonable central estimate is around ~5% (with wide uncertainty, plausibly 3–7%), for “at least one nuclear weapon used in war,” not necessarily global thermonuclear exchange. That level is uncomfortably high for a civilization-scale risk, and it justifies continued attention to de-escalation, hotlines, arms-control measures, and crisis-management capacity."

 

[Dale Floyd]

The whole point of licensing was to qualify appraisers to appraise for mortgage lending purposes. To meet THEIR need to demonstrate they were exercising some due diligence. They had to draw the limitations somewhere and regardless of where that line is there will always be complaints about exactly where and why.

As I say, your use of the weirdo properties as the example of having the license isn't everything goes without saying so I don't even know why you're saying it. I pass on certain assignments as being outside my personal competency on a regular basis.

We already have 2 basic licensing categories + competency requirements. If you want to reduce the number of licenses to 1 basic licensing category + competency requirements what is going to happen is it will eliminate probably half the current CRs straight off the top even though they are perfectly capable of servicing their more narrow and specialized niche of property types. Every CR would have to transition into the CG - including the requisite non-resd'l experience hours - even though many of them literally can't make it.

And BTW, I have never once met any appraiser who didn't think they were at least as good as everyone else so the ego comment isn't just limited to the CGs.

What you are calling "weirdo" isn't really that uncommon around the Tennessee River and Buffalo Heights. I'm sure there's a few things outside of California that you've not seen. Again, you make my point about competence and I appreciate it.

And you make assumptions about the impacts of 1 basic licensing category. You have no evidence or support to back up your statements about who would do what, or who could make it.

And yes - You are accurate about egos. Without one, we'd have been wiped away long before now.

 

[djd09]

The question is...are these Assessor valuations or licensed appraiser valuations.

In this state, the 'workers' in the assessor's office that determine value like to call themselves appraisers but there's not one licensed or certified appraiser in the group in this county. They're 'assessor appraisers' who may or may not know jack sht about property valuation. Generally, they're friends or relatives of the elected appraiser. "The book says that an extra bathroom is worth $zzz and that's that." They're Level 1 or 2 or 3 "Assessor Appraisers". If their valuation approximates FMV, its purely coincidental.

mortgage brokers are estimating value everyday without a license...ask that freddie guy

 

[George Hatch]

What you are calling "weirdo" isn't really that uncommon around the Tennessee River and Buffalo Heights. I'm sure there's a few things outside of California that you've not seen. Again, you make my point about competence and I appreciate it.

And you make assumptions about the impacts of 1 basic licensing category. You have no evidence or support to back up your statements about who would do what, or who could make it.

And yes - You are accurate about egos. Without one, we'd have been wiped away long before now.

One license cannot mean SFRs are the baseline. Not when it was FIRREA and FRTs that triggered the requirements for licensing in the first place.
They'll get rid of CR licensing before they get rid of CG licensing. Which I strongly doubt either will occur.

I taught the SL-CR transition courses prior to the 2008 bump in requirementsand the Income Cap courses. Hundreds served. So I know exactly what I'm talking about WRT who is capable of doing what.

 

[Dale Floyd]

I don’t think SFR should be “the baseline” as you say, and I’ve got no idea where you get that from. I do know several CGs in Tennessee only doing very simple SFRs which is probably a blessing.

And you don’t have to worry about anybody getting rid of CGs. They are dying out even as we speak, and I’m not seeing any effort in making a pathway for new ones either. The writing is on the wall. Who will replace them?

The other stuff you keep insinuating doesn’t really matter to me, but whoever these hundreds are that you’ve taught, who you say are incapable of doing anything beyond the simplistic, speaks to a different problem altogether. If we went back in time, and had only one comprehensive license driven by competency, you’d probably still be King George doing what you do. I’d still be me because of the choices I’ve already made. But the barriers to the next generation wouldn’t be so daunting.