DHA Appraisal Blog

 from Ann O'Rourke, MAI, SRA, MBA  

Appraiser and Publisher of Appraisal Today newsletter
2033 Clement Ave., Suite 105, Alameda, CA 94501

The information is provided by directly by fee appraisers and include the appraisers fee and may include the fee paid by the borrower. Very interesting!!

Here's a quote:

"In 1986, FHA MANDATED the appraisal fee of $225 be paid to all FHA appraisers. FHA realized that a fair wage was required to produce quality appraisal reports. If you adjust the 1986 mandatory appraisal fee for inflation, a current appraisal fee would be $436 (which was approximately the amount appraisers were charging prior to the HVCC)"

"Now, due to current "government" regulations, appraisers are being paid PRE-1986 wages."

Click here to check it out

http://www.appraisersupport.com/AS/Home.html

Please note that appraisal fees can vary in the same city for the same appraisal. Some appraisers are desperate and offer low fees. Other appraisers can re-negotiate a higher fee. Also, AMC fees vary dramatically around the country and among AMCs.

To say that there is an air of pessimism in the commercial real estate (CRE) market would be something of an understatement. With ominous terms like "tranche warfare" and "debt stack" being tossed around, and fears mounting over the health of U.S. commercial mortgage lenders and China's growing real estate bubble, real estate lawyers can be forgiven for feeling as if they're under siege.

To discuss the CRE crisis, The Am Law Daily caught up with Dewey & LeBoeuf real estate chair Stuart Saft.

Hello Stu, thanks for taking the time. So what's the current state of play?

It's soft and it's getting softer. The problem is multifaceted. It stems from the fact that for the last five years there was a great deal of construction going on, so it brought space onto the market. At the same time, we're really still in a two-year recession. So forgetting about residential real estate, which is already in default, we have $1.3 trillion in CRE that needs to be refinanced between now and 2013.

Where is that money coming from?

About $260 billion of it was originally financed by the securitization market, which of course doesn't exist anymore. And if that's not bad enough, the recession has pushed rents 40 to 60 percent below what they were when these loans were made. So even if the credit market was available to refinance the debt, the owners wouldn't be able to refinance because of the [diminished] rental stream.

See the full article

The American Society of Appraisers, American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers, the Appraisal Institute and National Association of Independent Fee Appraisers, have again joined forces to urge the Ways and Means Committee to approve H.R. 1831, The Conservation Easement Incentive Act of 2009.

In a letter sent to Chairman Charles Rangel, Democrat from New York and Ranking Member Dave Camp, a Republican from Michigan, the organizations asked that the legislation perpetuate the tax deduction for charitable contributions by individuals and corporations of real property interests for conservation purposes. The legislation currently in place will expire on December 31, 2009.

The letter signed by the appraisal groups states “By incentivizing the voluntary conservation of land while preserving private property rights, this deduction has helped preserve hundreds of thousands of acres of forests, watersheds, and farms for future generations. This important deduction cannot be allowed to expire.”

The tax incentive which was originally enacted in 2006 and was renewed as part of the 2008 Farm Bill,  promotes the use of conservation easements. These easements allow private landowners to retain ownership, control and management of the property while ensuring that the physical integrity of those lands will be conserved for the future.

The appraisal organizations have collaborated, and in cooperation with the Land Trust Alliance, have offered education to the appraisal community on the proper valuation of conservation easements. These education offerings include advanced seminars that teach participants how to comply with IRS requirements and other issues that might be found in the valuation of conservation easements. Appraisal organizations estimate that more than 1,000 participants have received this education.