You know what else is also free?  A visit to lowes, ace, youtube, and thousands of contractors forums to learn about detailed construction methods, costs, and challenges.  The funny thing about marshall and swift I think is best illustrated in heated markets and manufactured housing.  Now I was unable to get those used basic double wides over the 160k mark, even with increased land value.  How on earth did the other guys do it….  Those figures went damned near 300k lately.  Don’t people know they can order a brand new 2000 sq ft 2x online for 130k, including delivery and real property certification?  Cost approach for appraisers is irrelevant in stick built tract housing, plain and simple.  The real value of being an appraiser is not having access to cost tools, it’s being able to describe the total components of real property and estimate realistic costs and value or price benefits through a broad spectrum of real property understanding.  Cost approach went by the wayside a long time ago as a valid tool in this variable lending rate steep inflation environment.

Did you know over half of the people living in sf det homes in this country are now renting them?  You don’t own it till you own it and cost is relevant to the purchasing power this floating cash variable lending rate system offers to both consumers and builders.  Show me a cost approach which has a rate table and gives you the cash equivalent comparative to capitol lending rates for builders at the time, also incorporating the borrowers purchasing power and applying a multiplier to bring total cash equivalency.  If the item in question is no longer fungible, the value becomes based primarily in market.  The components stop being fungible when they are set down and installed as real property.

This is why regression and mass analytics falls short in appraisal.  That individual deck will still cost you 10k large.  The roof will still run you 5k.  The lack of or presence of total utility systems revamp can easily go 20k, and then consider the foundation.  These things are only loosely tied to agla.  A professional contractor won’t charge you less just because your home is smaller, their job still consumes so much time.

Corelogic, destroying the national standard, one monopolized portion of the industry at a time.

I’ve noticed this with our local CO real estate group, the meetings and minutes have shifted from education focused to planted product sales masquerading as CE or in this case, news.

It would seem that of late, everyone except appraisers are running this appraisal industry.

Corelogic is buying everything. Another reason to switch.