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MAI Exam Prep

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It has been awhile since I took Advanced Income Cap. I can't speak for the quality of the current coursebooks.

And, in case there was any confusion, I has poking fun at Michael with the "slacker" quip. Hopefully, no offense was taken.
 
Ken B said:
It has been awhile since I took Advanced Income Cap. I can't speak for the quality of the current coursebooks.

And, in case there was any confusion, I has poking fun at Michael with the "slacker" quip. Hopefully, no offense was taken.
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I actually had a t-shirt when I was younger that said "Slacker" and then had a definition of it. It became ironic later on as I joined the National Guard and went to college, got married and a job and kids, etc. I'm far too busy to be slacking off these days.
 
Gobears81 said:
Surprised that both you and Ken found the course books to be highly beneficial. I was a candidate for designation adviser to someone that had failed the income approach module multiple times by only studying the course books. I know I would have failed at least one and probably more of the modules if I only studied the course books. If I could have done it over again, I would have studied the course books less and put more emphasis on Whitmer's book or a Urubek/DeWesse seminar.
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The curriculum has changed since I took the comp exam, so it is possible the newer books are not as thorough. Whitmer's materials at my time were quite antiquated, and had example problems involving cap rate modifiers like J-Factors. I never heard of Urubek/DeWesse until now.

In general however, as appraisal has become a mindless "fill-in-the-blank" profession, many younger people lack the intellectual capacity to perform many of the kinds of problems presented in the ICA module. There are many appraisers who never in their entire career ever use a discounted cash flow analysis, for example. Given the hardest questions involve discounted cash flow analyses, this puts a significant proportion of appraisers in a difficult position.
 
RebelNYC said:
In general however, as appraisal has become a mindless "fill-in-the-blank" profession, many younger people lack the intellectual capacity to perform many of the kinds of problems presented in the ICA module. There are many appraisers who never in their entire career ever use a discounted cash flow analysis, for example. Given the hardest questions involve discounted cash flow analyses, this puts a significant proportion of appraisers in a difficult position.
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Being 35, I probably still fall into the younger people category, though the income approach module was not really testing my intellectual capacity. I suppose that everyone has a little bit of a different skill set-the DCF questions were a cake walk for me. My biggest difficulty was with questions in the sales comparison approach module-probably not supposed to go too in depth on them, but I remember one scenario had multiple questions and I believe it asked for a prediction of the results for the following year. But I ran a regression, took a simple average, ran probabilities of it having X or not having X...and 3 results that I was coming up with were also potential answers! So I had to choose the best right answer, though I saw the merits of each. Wasted at least 10 minutes on that question and was pretty sure that I had failed that module when it was finished.
 
It was called the Comprehensive Exam in 1985, so who knows what changes have been made in 30-years. I do re-call I took an AI prep-class and heavily reviewed income capitalization class materials. I double, triple checked all my answers and even checked a discounted cash flow problem with Ellwood (stop laughing). I was the second person to leave the exam room with probably 30 other test takers. They don't give out scores, but I know there wasn't a question I didn't get right. Over prepare.
 
I've got a pretty money question/answer sheet for the Income section. All the other sections are fairly easy. I bought all the study guides, did the thing with the classroom questions, etc, but none were as good as this 60 question test/answer thing I got from a friend at CB. Happy to pass along.
 
Word is from people I know that have taken the Income section more recently is that there are more concept questions and less quantitative problems. Number of MAI's shrinking? Make test easier. There are new MAI designations earned all the time, but it still wasn't outweighing those that were entering into retirement or dying.
 
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