Fred congratulations on your Certified Residential.
I am an AG in California, and since I had the qualifications years ago for the designation when licensing came into affect I went for the full boat. In my case and in my area there are very few Certified Generals so it just expanded my ability to make a living, also I do many agriculture properties which require the AG designation. For those of you who do not know California designation for Certified General is Appraiser General or AG on you certification number.
For you and your area you have much more access to commercial data that I do not have available, so that will be a big plus for you. You must remember that commercial work is very much like being a specialist in the larger urban areas. Many Certified Generals specialize in downtown high rise office buildings, or large hotels/motels, or large apartment complexes. Other may specialize in restaurants, service stations, malls of various types especially in the large urban areas like San Diego, so if you decide to go for your AG what area appeals to you.
You stated that you like doing 2 to 4 family and would like to do larger units. For your part of the world you will need the AG designation and there is plenty of properties and clients in the specialized area. It is good supplement to the residential market, especially when the residential market is slow.
The one piece of advice I will say to you is do you like to write, because frankly every commercial is different and I find that the narrative report is much easier to deal with to explain everything you need to have in the appraisal. One size like a URAR form does not fit commercial work. Commercial by definition is complex.
For me commercial work is old time appraisal, face to face with buyers and sellers of comps, lots of legwork, no MLS type service in my area. Your area will have more of this type of service which makes your life a little easier. But, the other side is that the fees are substantially more. My minimum fee is $2,000, and that is for a very simple commercial appraisal, I have charged in excess of $15,000 for an assignment. I have an acquaintance who specializes in very large farm properties and several years ago he charged a fee in excess of $500,000 plus travel expenses for an assignment that took him and his staff a year to do. These are not 10 to 20 page reports, my typical commerical report is minimum 50 pages narrative and had one that was well over 300 pages with all of the exhibits.
One of the great things about commercial work is that you actually get to do appraisals without artificial limits like only sales in last 6 mo. and not over 1 mile from subject and a lot of other rules placed by lenders which really restrict the appraisers ability to think and appraise. Because of my area, I have done some really unusual properties and I like the weird sometimes for a challenge. Try a pet cemetery or a mortuary if your macabre, or a bar and strip club, or churches, they all have added spice to my life as an appraiser.
If you like to write, like education and want to be the best in the profession then go for it.
