Our new monthly series will highlight unique aspects of the four career paths offered at Champions School of Real Estate, Appraisal, Home Inspection, Loan Origination and Real Estate.
The best part? These blogs by none other than our statewide division directors! This month’s first blog, written by our Statewide Director of Appraisal Will Harris, talks about the career of an Appraiser.
So you have some questions about becoming a real estate appraiser? I’ll give you a brief insight into that.
I’m Will Harris, the Director of the Appraisal School for Champions School of Real Estate. I’ve been a certified appraiser for over 25 years and was a commercial broker for 14 years. I’ve managed appraisal staff for large national banks over multiple states.
What I enjoy about being an appraiser is learning about a particular properties situation and the things that are important to the typical buyer in that market now and in the immediate future.
Being an appraiser is a lot of fun. It is a wide, wide open field, including, but certainly not limited to, residential, from single-family, high-rise condominium, multimillion dollar estates, and exotic vacation homes, just to name a few. Commercial, including office buildings, hospitals, retail shopping centers, malls, industrial plants, and farm and ranch like working ranches and exotic animal preserves; and don’t forget RV parks and airports. And that’s just real estate appraising. There is a wide world of appraising, anything that needs a valuation.
One of the great things about appraising is that you can change what you’re doing to something you enjoy. If you’re doing what you enjoy, you will love life, look forward to going to work, it will be personally satisfying and financially rewarding.
Many appraisers, after they’ve tried appraising few different types of properties, specialize in what they love. That way you become the “one to call” for that property type. As your reputation grows so does your income.
Appraisers are consultants, advisers, and they are like detectives. An appraiser learns what the client’s concerns are, what the properties current situation is in its market, and where it should be now and in the future.
There is a real need for good appraisers. There is a shortage of appraisers in many types of valuation and many locations, mostly due to a large number of appraisers that have retired, and are retiring in the next few years.