Rockytop, I have been a middle tn appraiser for almost 15 years, and actually I've lived here almost my entire life. I am pretty well established. On a positive note, Tennessee is a resilient area, around Nashville, normally. On a negative note, I have had my slowest spring ever, as has a mentor of mine, in Murfreesboro and he has been appraising over 30 years. I'm not too worried, as my wife has been working for one year now, after an eight year layoff. I had been somewhat expecting this. In January of 06, I did 13 residential appraisals, so we started thinking of putting her back to work. During that time, a local woman who has had a license longer than me called, and said she was thinking of retiring, as she could afford to, because her husband is a senior banker, because she was so slow. Another buddy in Franklin TN told me they(he and his wife) were slow at that time, and I said I'm so slow I only did 13 homes in Jan. He responded, well you did more than we did. He has been doing it close to 20 years and has rebounded somewhat, I think, but is still looking at diversifying and his wife reinstated her nursing license after a decade or so of having not practiced it.
My Murfreesboro buddy has a sick wife, so he is not afforded such a luxury and 2 or 3 or 4 a week is killing him. He is eating into savings.
I was in Denver Colorado two weeks ago. Before I left, I was told by a very knowledgeable real estate lady that some of the finest buys in the country are in Denver right now, as there is a glut of foreclosures out there. I've picked up these same vibs from the Colorado people who post here on this board. As I flew in and drove around a bit, Denver appeared like a booming area, earth moving equipment and new residential and commercial construction running rampant. On the surface it would appear that Denver holds great fortunes for anyone involved in real estate in any size, shape or matter but a closer study shows that that may not be the case. Denver, the way I gather it, is like a beautiful woman on the outside, who has an ugly spirit or soul, on the inside. So be careful about appearances. Spring Hill TN is on the radar as being one of the fastest growing areas anywere, but houses are just sitting there right now vacant, or just moving here and there. Many builders have dozens if not hundreds sitting vacant for sale. The market is a powerful thing.
I'm somewhat away from Nashville now, but I do know a closing agent up there who has been up there for decades, and he mentioned everyone is down, except of course, him. That kind of tells me that those who are the best, stay busy. I will note that my same Murfreesboro buddy who is slow, missed a deal because he could not get to it in one day, the other day. The lender told him who got the deal, and it was one of the largest most reputable appraisal firms in Nashville, so I take it they are sitting around waiting for stuff to come in. I will further note, it was a million dollar type property, something you normally don't just rush out and do.
One more thing, you should take a look at the number of license holders and study where they are located. I think you will see that over half of all holders are in the Nashville area or immediately surrounding area. The pressure on fees is higher there, with legions of appraisers doing very cheap work for AMC's and such. That said, if you have some national type accounts that you can bring with you, you might be in business quickly. Otherwise, you'll be doing cheap work and work for slimeball mortgage companies. My Murfreesboro friend was doing AMC work for some group for roughly $290. He said they called him when things were slowing and told him they could and would only pay $230 and had something like 30 appraisers who would do URAR's for that or less in Nashville. He no longer does work for them and they will get what they pay for.
I hope this is not too negative and I do feel that this market will sort itself out. That said there are double the number of license holders(all types) there were when I got mine in 1996, approaching triple. If I were moving here, I would go way out in the outskirts, and pick a little podunk(spell) town that nobody wants to service and set up roots there, for the time being anyway.
This, of course, is all predicated on the fact you are a residential appraiser. If you are commercial, throw this post into DB's empty waste basket that he'll pitch out come Christmas.
