Academic/Professor making a career transition: Commercial Appraisal?
Hi All - Apologies for the long post.
I am an academic who is approaching his 40s with 11 years of experience as a professor and scholar working at a very high-ranking college. I achieved tenure (the major early career promotion) at my college 5 years ago. I have multiple book projects slated to be published or written during the next few years.
My specialty is in humanities, and I hold a PhD from a coveted graduate program in my field, as well as an undergraduate bachelor’s degree from another very high-ranking college.
My academic career involved teaching undergraduate classes (plus grading and working with students one on one) and researching/writing and publishing peer-reviewed academic journal articles and books. My research and publications do not involve data or statistics (although I am good at this), and the vast majority of it is narrative writing, textual analysis, and synthetization of various sub-disciplines and schools of thought.
Assume that my academic career has permanently ended: the administration of my college terminated me after an ugly and protracted 2.5-year campaign (it’s hard to terminate a tenured professor) of political and other kinds of retaliation. Assume that (due to politics and the nature of my termination) I am not hirable by any other college or university in spite of my exceptional research and teaching background. And assume that my very expensive lawyers are about to file a major lawsuit against my former employer for wrongful termination and violations of academic freedom and due process to the tune of millions of dollars in damages.
I am getting married in 100 days, and desperately need a career change. For various reasons (especially because of multiple years of school and loans, and subsequent need work at corporate firms to be top rank in the profession), I have ruled out both law school and business school (although I have always know I would love law and would be a great lawyer). In general, a job working for a boss or a company is not the ideal option for me given my personality and need for independence.
I want a good income (my pay as an academic was 100k with many perks and flexibilities), and am willing to work very hard and am very tenacious. This brings me to my question: is a transition to commercial real estate appraisal, via a stint in residential appraisal and then a commercial mentorship, with the goal of becoming an independent/sole-proprietor commercial appraisal practice a good career to pursue for somebody like me?
Let me outline my path: My mother has is a state Certified Residential Appraiser (first in CT and now in CA, for a total of 17 years in appraisal), and has agreed to mentor me and take me on as a trainee in residential appraisal. This would allow me to start working and making an income quickly (a trainee can’t appraise without a mentor signing off), and eventually allow me to fulfill the Certified Residential License requirements to work on my own (timeline of 12 months). If I built any kind of work as a residential appraiser, I would focus on non-lender work and divorces and estates.
In the meantime, I would seek commercial appraisal sponsors for my training (or pay somebody a large lump sum of cash to take me on as a trainee for one year if absolutely necessary), so that I could learn commercial appraisal and receive certification hours. I would want to make this transition to commercial appraisal in an 18-24 month window after receiving my residential appraiser license. This would be a total timeline of 2.5-3 years for the whole transition from academia -> residential appraisal -> commercial appraisal.
I would simultaneously pursue the MAI designation path with the Appraisal Institute, given its academic focus and its prestige in the commercial appraisal world.
Is this plan just me being insane and not thinking clearly, or is this something doable and worth doing for somebody who is very talented, extroverted, a go-getter, entrepreneurial, and able to learn new things diligently and faster than most people?
- SoCal Aspiring Commercial Appraiser
so, is your interest in commercial appraisal primarily from your family influence? Nothing wrong with this, frankly, a lot of people in CRE are here because they got exposed to it via a family member or friends of family, just the truth!
Given your situation, I would just make sure you are clear-eyed on this field as opposed to others since you are basically doing a clean start. That said, commercial appraisal is probably one of the more/easy fields to get into, they need people and don't get the flood of applicants as it is deemed not "sexy".
Disclosure, I'm not an appraiser but worked with many when I did consulting (now work for developer), so I know this industry pretty well. Thus, with noted caveat, I think spending time in residential appraisal will be mostly a waste (unless you need for short term income and your mom is so willing, no shame in that, and better than driving for uber or whatever lol). Might as well network and get in with a commercial appraisal firm and make your experience count (not sure if residential appraisal exp. counts toward the cert. general lic. or jus the cert. resi lic., would suck to waste that time!).
Good luck, feel free to PM me if you want
Hi Redever - Thanks for your response. Yes, the 1500 residential hours in CA count towards the 3000 commercial experience hours.
Unfortunately, whatever I do now will probably be a clean start one way or another for several reasons: I don't have any hard business skills or experience (statistics, finance, marketing, etc.) so without going the route of the MBA I don't think the conventional recruiting in the business world will lead to something beyond an entry-level position.
Other good jobs in academia (of which there are very very few in my specialization) are basically not open to me due to my situation. Moving to DC and working in the think tank community (where former academics, especially in my field, could potentially thrive) is not an option due to marriage and future wife's job making relocation impossible.
Similarly, although top business strategy consulting firms (BCG, McKinsey, Bain, etc.) hire PhDs transitioning from academia, they tend to prefer science types from what I can tell (although this is not always the case). Even if I were to land a consulting job (which I may have a shot of doing with or without an MBA), I would be starting at the bottom consultant or analyst position. Nothing wrong with that, but it would involve a lot of travel and long hours for the first 4-5 years. The real payoff in consulting involves a regimented climb through consulting career ladder over the next 6-8 years (8-10 if I were to do an MBA in the process). So I think this option would not work given my age (39) and while I'm trying to settle down in my marriage, build a family, and have kids.
I watch my mom as a residential appraiser and although she makes very good money in the Bay Area (last year her income was over 250k, with only her husband serving mainly as her driver and small-scale assistant and with a part time remote assistant helping her with report writing), its grueling work that requires constant production - and I would not want to do it for longer than 1 or 2 years just to learn basics of appraisal and have an income, and to line up my transition to commercial appraisal.
What has attracted me to commercial appraisal is that it involves bigger projects that resemble somewhat academic style research and writing work, I could specialize, it appears to pay well and offer opportunities for expansion into a business if I wanted to start one and make a bunch of money, but would also give me the option of working for myself without killing myself in a corporate office job for years. I like the idea of eventually having the flexibility of working for myself, even though I realize that commercial appraisers work very hard.
But I also get the impression that if I go commercial appraisal rout, unless if I get an MAI with Appraisal Institute, it would basically permanently limit my career options and make any other future productive career transitions almost impossible or very very difficult to traverse.
Yeah, I'd say you have a good view on the appraisal industry. Too personal to say if best route for you or not, but you understand it. And yeah, of all the "mainline" roles in real estate, commercial appraisal is def the most "academic" (can argue if that is a complement or insult lol).
The policy/consulting world (which actually has a lot overlaps with appraisal tbh) would appreciate your PhD/academic type skills more I'd think. Can't imagine zero potential for a role in SoCal, but yeah, travel would be much more. Are you trying to avoid a travel heavy based job? Would say commercial appraisal can be super "local" by design. The consulting world could be different (btw, there is a lot more to that world than just the MBB types, local firms dominate in respective areas, and there are TONS of boutiques in SoCal). Your humanities background could actually play well in the "urban" development/policy/consulting world (side note... Urban Land Institute spring meetings are in San Diego in April, you should go, might be very worthwhile in understanding the full scope of the industry). And the being "Dr. So an So" can actually get some cred there (more than in appraisal at least).
I'm not really trying to talk you out of commercial appraisal, just have seen better fits for academic types in the real estate world in the consulting/policy space (granted, more of those are business/econ/architecture/urban planning types, but like you said, writing/research has broad applicability, sure don't need to be a "quant" to be successful). I also think you may be overestimating the sophistication of the appraisal industry (they are more basic than you realize, just being real). That said, some of the best appraisers I know (and worked along side of on consulting projects) were very technical, got trained on advanced statistics/data methods, and were lightyears above the average MAI. They also didn't do the standard "appraisal" work (like bank assignments, portfolio valuation), they did high end consulting, expert witness, and other fancy stuff (that honestly was not "appraisal" in the classic sense). In your situation, I'd totally aim in that direction.
Final thought on the residential side start plan.... given you are older than most starting, time is your enemy... if you can get a job in a commercial shop (which I think you could), I'd do that, personally, I don't see it adding much value even if the hours count towards certification.
Thanks for all this helpful advice. And I agree the plan for me should be to hook up with a commercial appraisal shop as soon as possible. Since I am getting married and the pressure of having an income source is real, I will pursue the Residential training through my mom and in the meantime double down on approaching commercial shops in SoCal - either for immediate opportunities or to line something solid up in terms of trainee option 9-12 months from now, when I would have already made progress towards Residential certification.
The other thing that makes me lean in this direction is that Appraisal Institute has told me that once I've completed my Residential hours, and am ready to take Certified Residential exam, they would admit me into the MAI designation candidacy (meaning I would be enrolled in their program). Based on what I've learned talking to 3-4 local commercial appraisers in SoCal, being an MAI designation candidate would also help open doors as I try to secure a commercial mentor.
Redever - I forgot to mention that both the idea of building a small commercial appraisal business (with maybe 2-3 people working for me), or specialization in things like eminent domain, hotels, estates, divorces, etc. as a one-man shop - all of those things (based on what I've read) attract me as a potential path.
The MAI designation candidacy also is attractive to me because it resembles an academic apprenticeship process, and because of my PhD and teaching background I would thrive in it and enjoy the demo project and thesis defense.
I have also heard that a successful commercial appraiser (say if I were to receive MAI designation) would be able to compete for some good government and state jobs down the line.
So from a certain perspective, I see this as a path for learning something very well, and having the potential to make a good income (or a really good income if I wanna work my ass off and run a business). And a path that perhaps gives me a few options down the line.
But from a more cynical and realistic perspective I feel like if I pursue this path my options are going to be very limited in the future.
agree with your thinking..... just know, if you want to be credible in those specializations (esp. eminent domain, an area I did a lot of consulting work in), you MUST work for a senior appraiser doing that stuff, you cannot (or should I say, will not) learn that stuff and be good to go on your own or in a standard "bank shop", you need to be a co-signer with a senior appraiser doing that type of work (your academic training should suit you fine for the ability to testify at depo and trial, but that is also a learned/practiced skill!).
Also, agree on the ability to go into gov't or buyside roles, your biggest enemy is time in that you are making up for lost time (so my advice, find were you can leverage the shit out of that prior career.......)
Good to know, and this is what I expected. Presumably I can get my license through training with my mom, and then work to find somebody in SoCal who I could partner with to help with work and develop my specialization that way.
Don't forget about the classes and coursework required to get the general certification license. This in my experience was the hardest to obtain given you are grinding hard as a trainee and might have trouble taking additional courses and exams. Its a solid career path, but if you going in for commercial you have to have a plan and stay the course for certification. Once you become a certified general any large commercial shop will take you in due to the limited number of appraisers. Just for context I jumped into the industry straight out of undergrad into a large brokerage as a trainee (Analyst). Starting out in resi will be valuable but I would encourage you to go straight into commercial. Finding a mentor is difficult and largely the worst part of the industry.
that "Trainee" system used in the appraisal industry is a big part of why people don't start, they shoot themselves in the foot with it! You are totally right, key if finding a legit, good mentor... and sadly, not enough are willing to have trainees
Agree - this is a real difficulty. Worst comes to worst, I can always try to pay a mentor who is close to retirement a lump sum for one year's worth of intensive training and work. Alternatively, I could possibly purchase a commercial appraisal business from someone who is planning on retiring, structure a deal that would include 12-18 months of training before retirement, and then offer 10-15% of my revenue for the subsequent two to three years to incentivize them to take me on.
Yes I have noticed this difficulty with finding mentors too. And I definitely plan on sticking to the plan - I'm not easily discouraged once I've formed a plan and am executing as long as there is a clear path with contingencies that I have charted out.
I'm already networking with one particular reputable commercial firm in my location in SoCal. They are unfortunately at full capacity in terms of trainees right now, but I hope that by developing that relationship there may be an opportunity for me to transition into in about a year.
I don't how what it's like in California exactly, but in NYC the barriers to entry are not as high as you might think. There are many commercial appraisal shops looking to hire trainees. Actually, there is a somewhat high attrition rate because many of the trainees can't hack it, so that translates to job openings.You can basically be writing reports front to end yourself before you are licensed as long as you are being supervised by someone who is licensed, and still be making good money while you are working towards your license. Of the different areas within commercial real estate, this might be the most attractive to you if you are the "professor type". DM me if you have any specific questions
This is encouraging to hear and helpful. Thank you for your advice.
Not to be noisy (you don't have to answer if you don't want to) could you say a bit more about this? It seems like an interesting topic.
Curious as well.
Wanted to thank everybody here for their helpful guidance and responses to my questions. Plunging in full speed and applying to commercial trainee/analyst positions at national firms, while networking and contacting every commercial appraiser in the 50 mile radius to set up conversations and seek opportunities for training.
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