Appraisal Journal

Browse past and current articles from this publication.

Uniform standards not applicable to appraisal in condemnation proceedings.(Recent Court Decisions)
When the eminent domain statute requires only that condemnors use "generally accepted appraisal practices," such appraisals need not satisfy the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice . . .

Use restrictions in easement do not apply to property deeded contemporaneously in fee simple.(Recent Court Decisions)
When a landowner conveyed a parcel in fee simple together with an access easement limited to certain uses, the use restrictions did not apply to the parcel, according to the Supreme Court of Georgia . . .

Town that approved property's current use cannot deny building permit based on that use.(Recent Court Decisions)
After a town approved a property's use as a waste processing facility, later denying a building permit based on the same "offensive use" was unconstitutional, according to the Appellate Division of . . .

Advertising income is relevant in assessing compensation for billboard property.(Recent Court Decisions)
When an outdoor advertising site was condemned, the income generated by the billboard must be considered as a factor affecting the property's value, according to the Court of Appeals of Tennessee. . . .

Property owner has no right to the continuation of public parking lots.(Recent Court Decisions)
The Supreme Court of Rhode Island ruled that a property owner had no legal interest in public parking lots used by its business patrons and could not challenge the sale of the lots to a private part . . .

State must compensate for foreseeable property damage resulting from construction project.(Recent Court Decisions)
Property damage resulting from the state's construction project was compensable only to the extent it was foreseeable by the state, according to the Supreme Court of Ohio. In 2001, the Ohio Depart . . .

Special statutory elements of compensation must be determined in initial condemnation proceedings.(Recent Court Decisions)
The statutory duty of a judge to increase a condemnation award for property with heritage value is not stayed when parties file objections to the award, according to the Supreme Court of Missouri. . . .

Condemnee entitled to compensation for business losses only when property is unique.(Recent Court Decisions)
When an office building property was condemned, the loss of a tenant's business must be separately compensated if no relocation site exists in the area, according to the Court of Appeals of Georgia. . . .

A long, hot summer and prospects for a frenetic fall.(FINANCIAL VIEWS)(Company overview)
Commentary From a glass is half full perspective, the economic environment has shown some sign of improvement, although most of that improvement has been in a decline in the rate of deterioration. . . .

Housing market developments in Europe.(INTERNATIONAL APPRAISING)(Reprint)
Markets Stagnate and Decline Gloom spread to all of Europe's housing markets in 2008. By year end prices were either stagnant or down. In fact, in real terms, prices were falling everywhere by the . . .

Market conditions: a new focus for residential appraisers.(RESIDENTIAL APPRAISING)(Reprint)
Last month an appraiser was complaining to me about the additional work required to complete Fannie Mae's new "Market Conditions Addendum," Form 1004MC (Freddie Mac Form 71). The appraiser said she . . .

Valuation Committee meeting notes.(NEWS FROM NCREIF)
The National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries' (NCREIF) 2009 Winter Conference took place in Salt Lake City, Utah, March 10-12. The initial session focused on updating committee members . . .

High-voltage transmission lines: proximity, visibility, and encumbrance effects.
ABSTRACT In this study, over 1,200 home sales in 1998-2007 are aggregated into four study areas with a 345-kV transmission line. Field data are collected on the sale properties relative to proximi . . .

Charter schools--an appraisal challenge.
Charter school appraisals are often required as pert of a lease negotiation as well as for establishing the value of the real estate for finance or establishing a cost basis for highly specialized p . . .

Expert testimony: regression analysis and other systematic methodologies.
The Seventh Circuit's Guardian Pipeline decision encourages wider use of multiple regression analysis in valuation proceedings in place of the longstanding matched pair comparison canon. This articl . . .

Nursing facilities: assets, interests, and ownership structures.
This article discusses the assets, interests, and ownership structures of nursing facilities. The appraisal of a nursing facility typically involves the valuation of the total assets of the business . . .

Noteworthy valuation-related papers from the American Real Estate Society Annual Meeting.(NOTES AND ISSUES)
The 25th Annual American Real Estate Society (ARES) Meeting was held in Monterey, California, April 1-4, 2009. Over 200 papers and panels were presented by academics, PhD students, and researchers, . . .

Comments on "You Can't Get the Value Right If You Get the Rights Wrong".(LETTERS TO THE EDITOR)(Letter to the editor)
We, the cosigners of this response, read with great interest the article by David Lennhoff, MAI, SRA, entitled "You Can't Get the Value Right If You Get the Rights Wrong" (Winter 2009). The followin . . .

Comments on "Relationships between the Overall Property and Its Parts, and the Three Approaches to Value".(LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
In "Relationships between the Overall Property and Its Parts, and the Three Approaches to Value" (Winter 2009), Mark Pomykacz, MAI, provides a framework for breaking the overall value of what he ref . . .

Armstrong/Kahn Award.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Kristy E. Mathews is the winner of the 2008 Armstrong/Kahn Award and a $1000 honorarium for her article, "Under the Microscope: Dissection of a Contingent Valuation Survey," . . .

Swango Award.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Randall Bell, MAI, is the winner of the 2008 Swango Award and a $1000 honorarium for his article, "Contaminated Waterways and Property Valuation," which was published in the . . .

Academic Article Award.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Steven Shultz, PhD, and Nick Schmitz are the winners of the 2008 Academic Article Award and a $1000 honorarium for their article, "Viewshed Analyses to Measure the Impact of . . .

Appraisal Journal Outstanding Service Award.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Nathan Pomerantz, MAI, is the winner of the 2008 Appraisal Journal Outstanding Service Award. This award recognizes the member of The Appraisal Journal's Editorial Board, Re . . .

Appraisal commissioned to resolve purchase-price dispute must conform to professional standards.(Recent Court Decisions)
When parties agree to base a purchase price on a professional appraisal, they will be bound only by an appraisal that conforms to professional standards, according to the Court of Appeals of Arizona . . .

Manufactured home's status as real property does not depend on surrender of motor vehicle title.(Recent Court Decisions)
The Court of Appeals of Ohio ruled that a manufactured home was properly appraised as real property when it was affixed to the land, regardless of whether the motor vehicle title had been surrendere . . .

Increasingly frequent use of easement does not constitute excessive use.(Recent Court Decisions)
When property was subject to an easement for golf balls, an increase in the number of balls entering the lot was within the scope of the easement and did not constitute excessive use, according to t . . .

Derelict fee statute may not be used to satisfy minimum lot size required for building purposes.(Recent Court Decisions)
The Appeals Court of Massachusetts ruled that a landowner was not entitled to include the portion of his property located in a right-of-way when calculating lot area for purposes of zoning requireme . . .

Property's total value must be allocated appropriately between land and improvements.(Recent Court Decisions)
The Supreme Court of Ohio ruled that a board of tax appeals could not arbitrarily allocate value between land and improvements, even when the property's total value was properly assessed. Polaris . . .

Disinterested appraiser has arbitral immunity; expert appraiser has no immunity.(Recent Court Decisions)
The California Court of Appeal ruled that a disinterested appraiser has immunity for his role in an appraisal conducted pursuant to law but that an appraiser hired as an expert has no immunity for h . . .

Value of leased fee relevant to fee simple value of property subject to long-term lease.(Recent Court Decisions)
In valuing the fee interest of property subject to a long-term, build-to-suit lease, an appraiser properly considered the value of the leased fee, according to the New York Supreme Court, Appellate . . .

Appraisal of commercial property must reflect the land's income-producing potential.(Recent Court Decisions)
When a parcel had inherent income-producing capacity because of its location, an appraisal based on sales of lots without commercial value was improper, according to the Mississippi Court of Appeals . . .

When good things happen to bad properties.(ENVIRONMENT AND THE APPRAISER)
Most studies of the effects of environmental contamination on property values have focused on the adverse consequences of contamination on the market value of the impacted properties. (1) For exampl . . .

Appraising interesting holes in the ground.
ABSTRACT A show cave is one example of where real estate is so intertwined with a business that the appraiser cannot properly value the real estate without also considering the enterprise. One sol . . .

Market prices and capitalization rates for commercial real estate in Ukraine.
ABSTRACT In this article, capitalization rates, based on market price data for commercial real estate transactions from 2006 through the first quarter of 2008, for Kiev and 25 regional cities in U . . .

Indigenous Peoples and Real Estate Valuation.
Indigenous Peoples and Real Estate Valuation Edited by Robert A. Simons, Rachel Malmgren, and Garrick Small Published by Springer Science + Business Media, LLC, New York, 2008, 289 pages $129. . . .

Local economic analysis for shopping center appraisals.
ABSTRACT Local economic area analysis is a study of the demand and supply factors that can affect the value of a subject property located within the boundaries of a local economic area. A local ec . . .

A message from the editor-in-chief.(Column)
The year 2009 is indeed an auspicious one. A new president has taken office in a time of major challenges, and the serious economic problems that originated in the U.S. real estate market have yet t . . .

Tax appraisals must include sales comparison method when data is available.(Recent Court Decisions)
The Appellate Court of Illinois ruled that the property tax appraisal of a mixed-use commercial building should have included the sales comparison method of valuation as sufficient sales data was av . . .

Comparable sales that occur after a taking can be considered in establishing fair value.(Recent Court Decisions)
In a condemnation action, comparable sales evidence is admissible to establish the condemned property's value regardless of whether the sales took place after the taking, according to the United Sta . . .

Assessed value can be established without a certified appraisal for the relevant tax year.(Recent Court Decisions)
In the absence of a certified appraisal for a particular tax year, a board of tax appeals could independently value property based on a certified appraisal for a subsequent year along with the appra . . .

Public has right to walk upon privately owned river beds when using state waters.(Recent Court Decisions)
The Supreme Court of Utah ruled that the public's easement in state waters includes the right to utilize the water for any recreational activity and to touch privately-owned river beds in connection . . .

Veterinary clinic is a health-oriented office under zoning code.(Recent Court Decisions)
The Supreme Court of Connecticut ruled that a veterinary clinic qualified as a permitted use in a district zoned for health-oriented offices. Gen Three, LLC (Gen Three) owns a building on a 0.57-a . . .

City's undue delay in condemning property can constitute inverse condemnation.(Recent Court Decisions)
Landowners whose property was declared blighted but never formally condemned can recover consequential damages if the city unduly delayed condemnation proceedings or engaged in untoward activity, ac . . .

Nonuse of nature conservatory land does not constitute a tax exempt charitable use.(Recent Court Decisions)(Brief article)
The Superior Court of Connecticut ruled that property did not qualify for a charitable tax exemption when the land was held for conservation purposes and no charitable activity took place on the pre . . .

Local government authority to regulate billboards includes power to ban all billboards.(Recent Court Decisions)(Brief article)
A city ordinance banning all outdoor advertising signs is valid when state law grants local governments unlimited authority to regulate the construction of billboards according to the Missouri Court . . .

A flood of economic trouble, a ray of political hope.(FINANCIAL VIEWS)
Commentary Over the past six months, the economy and capital markets have dominated the news. This attention blossomed in late fall as the economic environment continued to implode and Washington . . .

Financing and sales concessions: do we adjust or not? Can paired data analysis work if we don't?(RESIDENTIAL APPRAISING)
Sellers, whether they are individuals, brokers, or developers, may make sales concessions to induce a sale. When a buyer wants to purchase a house but cannot qualify for a loan because of excess deb . . .

Evaluating the potential impact of a proposed landfill.(Report)
ABSTRACT This article is intended as a road map for appraisers who have a landfill consulting assignment. Construction or expansion of a solid-waste landfill typically triggers an extensive permit . . .

A reality check on ground lease reversions.(Case study)
ABSTRACT In leased fee valuation of ground leases, conventional appraisal practices often disregard the potential contributory value of improvements in the reversion. Empirical evidence in this ar . . .

Bridging the gap between discount rate theory and investor surveys.(Report)
Abstract This article is intended to assist appraisers in reconciling the differences between the theoretical relationship of discount rates and overall capitalization rates and the published mark . . .