As a licensed real estate agent is there any advantage or disadvantage to getting an Appraisers license ?
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[{"id": "ffch416", "text": "Advantage: You become an appraiser.\n\nDisadvantage: You become an appraiser.\n\nChoose wisely.", "replies": [{"id": "ffd5v79", "text": "Succinctly put", "replies": [], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ffchu5r", "text": "Are you going to start an appraisal business on the side?\n\nAlso most places you cant just \"get\" an appraisal license. Here at least you need to work under an appraiser for at least 2 years before you can start your own shop.", "replies": [{"id": "ffci8w1", "text": "I just had a thought while I laid awake at 3am it may be beneficial given how often we get people asking what their building is worth. For a client or if I know theres a good shot at getting a listing obviously we are happy to do that for free but theres always those people who just want to use our market knowledge and have zero intention of selling or listing with me.", "replies": [{"id": "ffckoey", "text": "Broker Opinion of Value. It's basically a mini-appraisal and you can charge a fee for it.", "replies": [{"id": "ffckykw", "text": "I have charged before. Out of curiosity what would you charge for that?", "replies": [{"id": "ffcn7lp", "text": "Depends on the property but I have seen around $300. Doesnt take too long to pull some comps and put a couple page overview and opinion of value together. \n\nUnless you are going to work as an appraiser, it doesnt make sense to get it. They really dont do anything special. Part of your skills as a broker should be to value property. Especially most commercial property is valued based on its income anyways so it's pretty easy once you figure it out.", "replies": [{"id": "ffcog7q", "text": "This is kind of where i was leaning. Thanks for the response.", "replies": [], "depth": 6}], "depth": 5}, {"id": "ffcp66j", "text": "Agreed with baumbach. Typically in the $250-500 range depending on complexity. Not a big money maker, but once you have a template, it's not that time consuming to pull comps and plug in information.", "replies": [{"id": "ffdlu0h", "text": "I would suggest that it depends on your use cases. Having an appraiser's license can generate work in the 'bad' times when deals are thin. You can do things like estate appraisals (probate/trust), partnership buyouts (which happen in good and bad times) and a lot of banks / financial institutions often order 'restricted scope' appraisals when times get tough in order to mark to market their portfolio for allowances for loan and lease losses (ALL).  \n\nAs u/baronti said, there are some people who view you differently with an appraiser's/MAI designation.  For some odd reason, I've found that MAI's have some of the worst egos of the real estate profession yet are somehow paid fairly well to make assumptions which can completely render the value in realty. This is coming from someone with 15 years of experience in real estate credit in good/bad markets.", "replies": [], "depth": 6}], "depth": 5}], "depth": 4}], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ffd2tuh", "text": "It\u2019s certainly something you can market as a plus.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ffugi6m", "text": "I work as an appraiser at one of the big 2 commercial firms. We have a much smaller footprint than brokerage or investment sales which offices in only 15 or so cities. This makes it hard for us to compete on price with local firms in cities that are not within driving distance of one of our offices since we have to perform an inspection on all jobs. If one of our brokers in other cities could maintain a license and perform inspections it would allow us to compete for more business. The problem is it is a lot of work to get a license. The more realistIc approach would be an appraiser switching to brokerage to maintain his appraisal license.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}]