What is Your American Dream?
What is Our Dream as an Austin Real Estate Appraiser?
It is simple: time to spend on our priorities. These priorities are named Sarah, Audrey, Sam, Ariel and Benjamin. Aged 4 to 13.
5 kids, one family. Our lives are blessed.
We launched our real estate appraisal business because we knew, if managed well, it could be our ticket to living The American Dream. We are both self-labeled workaholics and have a hard time putting something away until it is done. Real Estate appraisal is the perfect line of business for that – we’re both highly analytical, detail-oriented and love love love real estate. And we love love love Austin. Always have, always will. Can’t remember a time when I wasn’t studying houses, neighborhoods, fences (yes, fences!!) . . . everything about it is interesting.
Real Estate Appraisals are Mini-Projects
Fortunately, real estate appraisals are like mini-projects that get done. And when they’re done, they’re gone and only a rare few ever come back with questions. This means we can plan our days, plan our time, focus on our appraisal orders when we’re working and put them away when we’re not. We work hard and we play hard.
For us the American Dream is simple: keep our modest home in the suburbs that maps to good schools, have tasty food on the table, order books from Amazon.com without too much concern about the price. We spend our non-work time with our children and our friends and to us, that is living the American Dream.
We have our health, we have hope, we have love.
Our 4th of July cards (yes, we sent 4th of July cards to family and friends) simply read:
“There are those, I know, who will say that the liberation of humanity, the freedom of man and mind, is nothing but a dream. They are right. It is the American Dream.”
– Archibald MacLeish
We Need Your Business
For our dreams to come true, we need your business. We think you’ll be pleased with our attention to detail and the consistent quality of our reports. Please, won’t you give us a try?
We know Austin and we know value.
Thank you for your time!
I am a man about 63 years old. My brother and I are fixing to sell our business and move to the Austin area. I will be too young to just shut down everything. I went to school there, so I know how to get around Austin relatively well.
I’ve been contemplating getting my appraiser’s license, because I want to set my own hours and work load. Supplemental income if you will. I know that once I pass the coursework and test required to obtain the trainee’s license I will have to find a full-fledged appraiser such as yourself to work under for two years prior to getting state certified.
My question to you is… 1) am I heading in the right direction as far as supplemental income, setting my own pace; 2) would it be hard to find a certified appraiser who would be willing to allow me to work with them for a period of time, and possible part time later on.
You know Austin, you know the market… is this something that might fit?
Thanks, JIm
Hi Jim,
Appraising can be a good way to have supplemental income and to set your own pace. It does, however, take a fairly long time (3 to 5 years) to get to the point where that is the case. A typical trainee may make 35% of the full appraisal fee on an assignment, but splits can vary considerably depending on the other benefits and work conditions you negotiate. Typical appraisal fees can vary from $225 to $450 per appraisal.
A la mode recently published the Appraisal Fee Reference, which makes for interesting reading (for an appraiser!).
One thing you need to know is that a lot of appraisers, and appraisal companies are really hurting right now – something called the HVCC was implemented last Spring. It essentially inserted a middleman between the lender-appraiser relationship. These middlemen are called Appraisal Management Companies (AMCs). The AMCs route appraisals from the lenders to appraisers and take a “haircut” of the standard fee. This haircut can run as much as 50%. So, if we take a $450 fee, slice off $175 for the AMC, that leaves $275 for the appraisal company. A trainee may receive 35%, or $96.25. It may take a trainee 6 to 8+ hours to do a single appraisal, depending on the background of the trainee and how quickly he or she learns the complexities of the systems accessed for reference information and data.
Appraisers in Texas are licensed by TALCB. Here is the list of educational requirements for the different appraiser licensing levels. It can take 3 to 5+ years to move from trainee to licensed status, depending on the license level you want to obtain. You can be “licensed” in less than 2 years, but “Certified Residential Licensed” will give you much more flexibility and control of your schedule, your fees, your assignments, etc.
This chart shows Texas Appraiser licensing requirements as of the date of this reply – this one is harder to find on the TALCB website which I why I’m linking for you, here. It may help you plan or make your decision about whether or not to join this profession.
We do plan to take on one or more trainees, but probably not until next Spring (2011) or possibly later next year. It depends largely on what happens with the HVCC (whether or not it gets overturned or modified).
If you decide to do this, keep us in mind. Let me know if you have any more questions.
You can give me a call on my cell phone (512) 585-4758 to talk about Austin and some things to think about when moving here!
Alison