Real Estate Appraisal Fee

The first thing many clients ask when calling an appraiser is “how much does the appraisal cost?”.

A few questions more important are:

Where is the appraiser's office? (base coverage area/local experience)

What techniques are used to reconcile market price variances? (regression modeling/match pair sales)

· Does the appraiser have experience developing appraisal reports for your particular intended use?

To To board of a market segment definition could compile large number of data points from inferior or superior market segments skewing the statistical model or supporting an opinion of value not reflective of the subject property.

Beware, like many things in life you get what you pay for. This does not mean the more you pay the higher the value but more importantly ensure the appraiser you hire has experience in statistical modeling and is familiar with local market trends.

Condition typically carries a lot of weight in residential market pricing. An inadequate investigation in this area can have a negative impact on the opinion of value. When appraisers take short cuts in sales analysis the appraiser may end up doing a disservice to the client by developing an opinion of value from data points not reflective of the subject property. In the context of time is money, how much time do you think the cheapest appraiser will spend on data analysis?