Stan Choate, Office Manager
May 2019
At Spurgeon Appraisals, we are occasionally faced with tense situations over the value of real estate. After being hired to appraise some particular property, we begin to see that the property is not worth what everyone else expects. We check and re-check our data, but our conclusion only conforms less and less to expectation. After we deliver our report, we wait for one of the interested parties to contact us—as we know they will—to contest our conclusion, sometimes with great emotion.
In such tense situations, we always ask our customers, and other interested parties, to remember and consider a few basic appraisal concepts. One of those concepts is the unbiased nature of appraisal work—and that is the topic of this month’s newsletter.
In nearly all situations, people appreciate that unbiased opinions are less likely to be clouded by such obstacles as sentimentality or the hope of personal gain. The valuation of real estate also benefits from such unbiased opinions. Sellers are more likely to get what their property is worth; buyers are less likely to waste money; lenders avoid making bad loans; family members and business partners are more likely to divide assets evenly—if they have an unbiased opinion of that real estate’s value. Without a trustworthy opinion of value, these same people could only base their decisions on hearsay, guesswork, or maybe even lies.