Our Experience
Past Experience in the Bankruptcy Chapter 13 Appraisal Field is crucial in order to serve the client and attorney. Appraiser Pinellas has that experience. Our Firm has provided highly professional and accurate bankruptcy appraisal for decades. Marten W. Davis, SRPA has extensive experience in serving attorney’s in all aspects of Attorney Support Cases. We provide attorney service including Bankruptcy, Divorce, Estate/Probate, Lawsuits and Expert Testimony.
The Principal of Appraiser Pinellas, Marten W. Davis, SRPA holds one of the highest Professional Designations of the Appraisal Institute. The Appraisal Institute is the largest and most respected Professional Appraisal Organizations of Appraisers in the World. Jill R. Davis, Appraiser also has extensive experience serving Attorney’s in Bankruptcy, Estate, Probate, and Divorce Cases.
The Appraiser Pinellas Service Pledge:
We take pride in our pledge to provide quality professional appraisal service that is predicated on the most thorough research and preparation. We realize that the valuation of any real estate is based on finding comparable properties which have physical and locational similarity with the subject. The closer that we can get too similar, the more accurate the appraisal. This we strive to do on EVERY appraisal. Since we can not serve the needs of everyone, we decided that in order to give quality service to our clients, we should limit our practice to very local clientele. We decided to serve clients in only Pinellas and Hillsborough Counties of Florida.
There are many examples of appraisers who try to serve a regional area. It is not a good practice to serve the public in areas in which you are not highly attuned to specifics of the neighborhoods. How accurate can an appraiser be if coming in from a distant place? Not very…..
Appraiser Pinellas is limited to residential properties including single family, condominium, land and small multi family dwellings. If you study our company profile, we believe that you will find that we are the best appraisers in our market area. Our clients think so!
Other Areas of Service:
We also serve clients in other areas than the legal field. We provide client services to Accountants, Banks, Insurance Companies, Realtors and Individuals. We provide appraisal services for numerous uses including:
Bankruptcy
Divorce
Expert Testimony
REO (Real Estate Owned Bank Properties)
Foreclosure
Mortgage
Estate/Probate
Listing Value
Property Tax Dispute
Liquidation
Legal Dispute
Current Fair Market Value for a Variety of Purposes
One of the primary areas of practice for Marten W. Davis, SRPA is providing Appraisers Expert Testimony in Local Courts, District Courts and Federal Courts. Expert Testimony can be provided for a wide range of legal areas. All appraisals prepared for Attorney Use are prepared with the expectation that we will have to testify as to our findings. Thus, all appraisals are prepared precisely and highly documented. We never want to provide a surprise to out client in court. A poorly documented appraisal is NOT SATISFACTORY! We value our high standing with Judges and Courts across Florida. We NEVER want to make an opposing attorney smile.
Appraiser Pinellas also provide some appraisal service for the mortgage industry. We provide FHA appraisals. Being approved as a HUD/FHA Appraiser is one of the most stringent acceptance processes in our industry. Marten W. Davis, SRPA is highly regarded by this government division. It is our hope, that we at Appraiser Pinellas can be your choice of a professional appraiser to serve you in your legal matters. We pledge to serve you in the most professional manner possible.
Things That Set Us Apart From the Rest:
We provide quick service to our clients. We never overload our practice in hope of making tons of money. We only serve a select clientele and limit our practice to those clients we can serve in the most professional manner. We make ourselves available to our clients. You can always reach us via cell phone. We provide complete contact details to our clients. Appraiser Pinellas works on a “Golden Rule” Policy! We keep you continually posted as the status of assignments. We accept Visa & MasterCard for the convenience of our clients. We will talk to you in person about your appraisal needs and urge you to call if you have questions or specific needs. Our Firm is up to date on technology. We use only the latest appraisal aids. We can deliver appraisals electronically as well as able to transmit in the new AI Ready Format. Give us a call; we would live to serve you in your appraisal matters.
Be a Successful Appraiser…..
Not many areas of the United States have escaped the tremendous downturn in real estate property values.
The Real Estate Appraiser has suffered especially, with the downturn, because of a lack of refinances and sales and a general softening of activity.
The Real Estate Appraiser who is seasoned has used this time to establish some new areas to practice his trade. One of the best is Bankruptcy Appraisals prepared for attorneys. The Bankruptcy Appraiser will usually do appraisal for a Chapter 13 Bankruptcy or for Chapter 7 Bankruptcies. Most times the appraiser preparing this type appraisal will use all his refinance and purchase appraisal skills, but in a slightly different way.
He will be dealing with attorneys and individuals who are in the process of preparing for a bankruptcy hearing. In order for the Judge to pass judgment on the attorney’s submission, an appraisal of the current Fair Market Value of the property is usually required.
Timing of the process is important as most people wait until the last second to spend any added money, which they might not have. The appraisal becomes a costly expense for the bankruptcy client.
If you are going to try to broaden your appraisal business to include Bankruptcy Work, I would propose that you use the Attorney as a buffer between your client and the fee payment. If this is not something that the attorney is crazy about, ask for a money order or cash. If they want to present a check for your fee, take the check immediately to their bank and cash it. If the money is not there, you will know up front before a lot of time is expended on the appraisal assignment.
Most counties have aggressive prosecutors who work at recovering bad checks. A long process, usually very easily averted by the above suggestions.
The appraisal format is the same as for a refinance appraisal or purchase appraisal except for some of the certification and extended comments sections. The only thing needed is to make a new template specifically for this type appraisal. I personally like the Appraisal Institute Form for this type appraisal. Allows a little more deviation from the normal 1004 format.
If you are not doing appraisals for Bankruptcy and Divorce, you are missing the major portion of the appraisal assignments. At least the FULL FEE APPRAISAL ASSIGNMENTS. Start contacting attorneys and you will be surprised at the volume of business in this Niche. You really need to become an experienced Bankruptcy Appraiser and Expert Witness.
Appraiser Pinellas
With the tough times in the Residential Appraisal Enterprise, appraisers have some exciting decisions to make. Should I sign up with the Management Companies and take a cut in pay? Give a lot of MY FEE to the Management Company? OR, should I try to broaden the appraisal business to fill up the work day with full fee assignments? simple decision if you are good at “web promotion” and/or “in person promotion”. Either way will work.
If you are savvy with Web Promotion, design a great looking site that is optimized for the Search Engines with excellent Title, Keywords that are distinct to your Coverage Area. For example if you are an appraiser serving Fox County Virginia you should target keywords such as: Fox County Appraiser, Fox County Appraisal. But an even far better idea is to also target words that are generic like Appraiser, Appraiser Pinellas, Real Estate Appraiser, Residential Appraiser, etc. Target these on a local and regional level.
Post your website on local directories with the generic keywords. Design a lot of pages that target specific keywords like: smithappraisals.com/ResidentialRealEstateAppraisalCompany.html. In this way, you will be able to capture a ton of local traffic as well as national traffic for the precise keywords. Using Google Adwords is a great way to get highly targeted traffic. You must pay for each click but the traffic is as targeted as you can get. You MUST use a program to track your results. My favorite is a program called AffiliateProphet. They have upgraded to a new program called ConversionProphet. You can find this software by performing a Google Search.
The second way and probably the best way, is to contact users of your services directly. People like Attorneys, Insurance Agents, etc all use someone to do their appraisals and cost surveys. Might as well be you. You can get in touch with them in a lot of ways. You can buy a list of local attorneys, insurance agents from list vendors like InfoUSA.com. These lists are very specific and have detailed contact information. You can do a Google Search for: “Attorneys Fox County” and see what comes up. Focus on the ones with your phone exchange. Call them, Drop in, or email them with your information.
If you prefer to be more regimented, there is a new product in the appraisal field called an RMV (Reconciled Market Value) Review. Many of the management companies perform them for huge lenders like Chase, etc. You can make a reasonable living doing these on a daily basis. Maybe ample to sustain you during these tough times.
If you like to work for the Management Companies, I can not advocate enough a product that I personally bought a long time ago that gives the Management Companies and all contact information to sign up with them. I found a excellent list of management companies with all their contact information. Do a search for “Management Company List”.
As you can see, there are quite a few ways to survive and even flourish in these tough times. Just get busy with a plan to boost your business in some effective way. Nobody else will do it for you – get out there! The successful Appraiser Pinellas is working hard to establish new clients and different types of business.
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