Appraisor vs Home Inspector
Interview with Ben and Kevin-David
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Kevin-David:
So I guess we'll start off with the basics like what is…
So you're a home appraiser... I was reading the regulations and the law. I believe it says up to four unit houses, or four unit apartment buildings. Is that true?
Ben:
Yeah so there's a “Certified Residential Appraiser” and there's a “Commercial Appraiser”. The Certified Residential Appraiser is licensed to appraise anything up to four unit housing complexes, above that Commercial Appraiser and those are two separate licenses.
Certified residential appraiser in the state of Florida
the requirements to be able to become an appraiser one of those is you - I think at this point you have to have two years of college, I don't believe it has to be in any specific the discipline. It used to be four years when I got into the business, but they have changed since; because of the kind of extensive requirements, the appraiser pool was shrinking and there weren't enough appraisers. So a few years ago they went back, or they roll it back, so now I believe you need two (2) years rather than four (4) years and I believe they dropped the amount of on-the-job hours, as (basically an apprentice) that you need to get into it. When I got into the business it was twenty-five hundred hours. I believe now it's fifteen hundred hours. And then you have to take, I believe, one hundred and sixty (160) hours of classes through one of the online vendors, such as mckusick, and then once you do that you have to pass an exam through them. And then after you pass that then you go to the State where you do a proctored exam. I think it was like a four hour exam. I actually looked for last month’s. I looked on on the appraisal board's website and the pass-rate in the state of Florida was forty percent (40%). So I believe twelve (12) people passed the exam last month in the state [Florida]. Some of them were retakers. I believe the overall was a forty percent (40%) successful pass rate.
So it's a bit difficult because there's a lot of statistics, and things to know. So my background was business and marketing, so I had already taken them.
Kevin-David:
The requirements changed over the years, is what you're saying?
Ben:
Yeah sure there is there's a certain amount of classroom education and then an apprenticeship and then in an exam.
Kevin-David:
If I understood it right there's two different exams? One is from the education provider or vender, and then the other one… Is that just a free test like a practice test for the state exam? Or is that…
Ben:
Yeah, it is like a pre-test but if you don't pass that one you can't go on.
Kevin-David:
Then that means your classroom hours aren't finished until you
pass that exam, okay.
Kevin-David:
If I understand correctly, you were both a Certified Residential Appraiser and you were also a Home Inspector; licensed for both of those. Do I have that right?
Ben:
Yeah, that's right.
Kevin-David:
Okay so, Certified Residential Appraisal and Home Inspection what is the course of action, if somebody wanted to become a Home Inspector? What would they have to go through?
Ben:
So the Home Inspector, there's no education requirements to sit for the exam, so you don't have to have a college degree and you don't have to do any type of apprenticeship. So you you can take your online education, I think it's one hundred (100) hours of classroom, or maybe, ninety (90) hours online classroom time, and then you can sit for the exam.
When I ran my Home Inspection business, I had a few guys that worked for me that got all of their education and their licensing done in less than thirty days.
Kevin-David:
Okay, so, a considerably less amount of time to get there than it is to get your Certified Residential Appraiser license...
Okay so now, again in regards to Certified Residential Appraisal vs Home Inspector, what is the work that is done? Like what what does a Certified Residential appraisor look for in a home, versus the Home Inspector?
Ben:
So, as a Certified Residential Appraiser, what we're doing is, coming up with an opinion of value of a home, or a commercial building, but we're coming up with an opinion of value in the current market conditions. Whereas a Home Inspector, most of the time the Home Inspector comes in when somebody's buying a house. They're asking the Home Inspector what is this a good house to buy; is it safe? Is there anything wrong with it? So the Home Inspector’s basically looking for what's wrong with the house the Appraiser is looking for what's the value of the house.
Kevin-David:
Okay so we're talking about the Certified Residential Appraiser. That verses, or compared to, a Home Inspector. So what circumstances would someone have to be in that they would call a home inspector.
Ben:
I primarily get call for two purposes. One purpose is: Before they purchase a home they want to find out, like taking an x-ray of the home, they want to know everything that's wrong with the home, or everything that you know that's not wrong. They want to know what kind of shape the roof is in, the hpc the electric, the plumbing, you know, the foundation, those things. The second reason they would be called is insurance. Homeowners insurance cares about how much life is left on your roof; they care that all of the electrical, in your house, is safe; they care about the plumbing, there's no water leaks that are going to damage the home. So they get called to do a four point inspection. The four point inspection is the home inspector coming in and verifying all of the things that the insurance company wants, or whether you're switching insurance companies, or whether you want your rates to go down. Because if you put a new roof on, the insurance company will lower your homeowner rates. So the only way to verify that is by having a licensed Home Inspector come in, and write up a four point inspection which goes to the insurance company and they see that it's safe or not safe, or how many years are left on your roof, and then that's how they figure out what your rates are.
Kevin-David:
Okay, so a Home Inspector versus a Residential Appraiser. The Home Inspector is going to be looking for the quality of the home for various parts of the home. So you're saying the roof, water leaks, so the plumbing, also electrical; so they're looking at the quality of what's there?
Ben:
Yeah the deterioration, or lack of deterioration, the safety. Because obviously if you have... if your roof is towards the end of his life there's a lot better chance to have a roof leak, and the insurance companies going to have to pay out. So Home Inspections are really vital to the insurance company.
Kevin-David:
Okay so now that we've talked about what situation somebody might be in to call a Home Inspector, now what situations might somebody be in when they would need to call a Certified Residential Appraiser.
Ben:
Sure so the primary reason you need to call a Certified Residential Appraiser is for lending purposes. So the bank, or private lending, or whatever, whoever it is, wants to know that the amount they're loaning on the house, if it were to go into default, they would be able to sell it and get their money back. So they don't want to over-extend themselves on a loan. So they call in the appraiser for their opinion of value so that they know and understand what they're lending on.
Kevin-David:
So when a Certified Residential Appraiser comes into your house, or anybody's house I suppose, and a homeless veteran comes into the house, are they looking at the same things? Or looking at different things?
Ben:
They're looking at different things in some cases, but they're also looking at similar things. When you need an FHA appraisal the appraiser has to be certified by FHA and FHA looks at the health and safety of the home as well. So those are similar things that a Home Inspector would look at. However the home inspectors are not looking for anything that matters to value on the whole, the appraiser is. And then, secondarily, let's say an FHA property they are looking for health and safety issues because the housing authority requires that such as to secondary thing that that they'll look for
Kevin-David:
Okay this has been a very informative conversation.
So your name is Ben and you work for Coastal Appraisals. What areas do you cover
Ben:
Citrus county, Hernando county, Sumter county, Marion county, Pasco county, Levy county; central and west central Florida
Kevin-David:
Thanks for your time today