Anyone start as an appraiser?

My name is Phil. I landed on this forum while doing some research for the Certified Residential exam. Anyone else get their start in appraisal? My goal is to move into commercial ASAP and keep options open from there, so just curious.

11 Comments
 

I didn't personally, have a few friends that graduate college with me who did who are now in development and investment mngt, and know others that went into investment sales brokerage. All moves totally doable. 

You reference becoming cert. resi. I'd move over to commercial appraisal work ASAP, that is useful/valuable, I think going from resi appraisal is super tough. Just my opinion. Good luck!

 

Great, thanks! When I couldn’t even find “Appraiser” in the drop-down menu for professions here, I was worried this just wasn’t the right forum for me, but seems it is! Commercial is my plan, but my firm is entirely residential rn. Thanks for your input.

 

There have been many appraiser threads on this forum, maybe search will help you find. Will restate, I'd jump from the resi firm to a true commercial firm as soon as you can. The experience you gain at the resi firm is really not going to help if this is what you want to do. I'd make that jump even if it costs seniority, income, etc.... IF you are sincere and dedicated to jumping full into CRE

 
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I started my career as a fee appraiser on the commercial side. If you want to be on the commercial side of the business, I would switch ASAP.

There is a bias against appraisers in a lot of the firms, so networking is going to be very important if you want to switch into a front office role somewhere. Not impossible (myself and several others on here have done it), but not a walk in the park either.

 

Great, thanks for the feedback. I'm curious, though: why is there bias against appraisers? Do we come across as too strict, too bookish / removed from the actual realities of most transactions? Or is it something else entirely, like we seem uneducated?

 

Weird people are saying that. I have spoken to many analysts, associates, directors and partners in REPE and they highly recommend getting valuation experience (many of them started as commercial appraisors) I'm working in Sydney as a commercial valuer and have had offers after a few days if applying.

Just wouldn't stay too long is all.

 

A lot of people think appraisers are out of touch with the market because appraisers tend to be 3-6 months behind in terms of trends (appraisal requires comps to move anything up and down so by the time a deal closes and then gets reported it is 2-3 months old.

Also, a lot of people have bad experiences where a deal (personal or professional) doesn't appraise and it messes something up. So appraisers get lumped into the "bad" category.

Honestly, in terms of learning how to pull public data, find comps, analyze a business plan, it is great experience. There is just bias against it in general so if your plan isn't to be an appraiser long term, you should go in, learn what you want/need and then move on

 

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