A Day in the Life of an Appraiser

5:30am: Drag myself out of bed. Hit the gym in my attempt to be less overweight.
6:30am: Back from the gym. Make coffee and a light breakfast. Off to work!
7:30am: Arrive at work and walk in to my supervising MAI's office and chat about our respective weekends. He's been in for over an hour and a half and is already halfway through his first appraisal review. We discuss the assignments in our pipeline and our deadlines for the week.
8:00am: Spend half an hour reading through various news and market informational sources. Am appropriately disappointed with the Hudson Yards proposals.
8:30am: Organize my tasks for the day. Print out Sanborn maps for the area immediately surrounding a property we're appraising in the Financial District and start researching ACRIS and the Department of Buildings for notable activity.
9:30am: Compile a list of action items and questions for various brokers and owner/investors along with the appropriate telephone numbers. A fax with tax information for a property in upstate New York that I'm also appraising is placed on my desk. There are 2 weeks before the deadline for that appraisal so I file it away for use later.
9:45am: Supervisor drops off his review of another appraisal red-inked on almost every page. Read through it and start making changes while trying to reassure myself that most of the changes aren't that substantial and it isn't all that bad. Nevertheless, I smack my head on the desk whenever I come across grammatical and spelling errors that I should have caught.
10:30am: Send in the updated appraisal for a final once-over. Speak to my supervisor for insights on the reasoning behind changing my terminal cap rate by 50 basis points. Am handed a small stack of properties to set up so that they can be bid.
10:45am: Back to the other appraisal. Speak to several brokers and start writing up the local area.
11:30am: Receive the go-ahead to send out the reviewed appraisal from my supervisor. The appraisal is pdf'd and sent out.
12:00pm: Head out with several associates and pick up a salad for lunch. Am horribly serious about losing some weight. Take lunch at the desk and spend the time checking gmail and chatting with a few friends.
12:45pm: Receive an email from the review department of an Investment Bank with a list of questions regarding an appraisal we delivered. Naturally, they believe that they deserve more value. Spend a good while writing a reply explaining our reasoning. Schedule a phone call with the reviewer, my supervisor, and myself to clarify additional details.
1:30pm: Begin searching my company's database as well as CoStar for sales of properties comparable to the property that is the subject of my appraisal. Spend a good two hours confirming the research on the comps. You can never trust what other people have reported until you or a trusted source has verified the information. After all, when the appraisal leaves your desk it's your signature, and your reputation, that's on the line.
4:00pm: Take a break from comp research and start work on modeling the finances of the property in Argus. Although apparently a relatively straight forward property with less than 20 tenants, issues always appear. Read through each lease to verify the rent and the recoverable expenses with the rent roll provided. Mistakes are found in the recoverable data for 4 tenants and only the operating expenses for 2001 were provided. It's going to be one of those properties again. Draft an email to the property contact for updated expense information and to verify the recoverable information. Depending on the response time of the contact, I may need an extension on this appraisal.
5:30pm: A broker I was trying to contact the whole of last week finally gets back to me. We chat for a few minutes about the going-ons in the neighborhood he covers and I note some of that for future reference. He refers me to a developer that I should contact for additional information regarding another assignment in our pipeline.
6:00pm: Complete my sales comparable research and schedule a time on Wednesday to visit the properties I am not familiar with. I start making adjustments to the comparables and begin writing up a discussion of each comparable.
7:15pm: Complete the set ups I was given earlier in the day and place it on my supervisor's desk. I start to close up my work and organize myself for the next day.
7:30pm: Join a few other Associates who are still in the office for round of drinks. The department is very warm and friendly, and the Associates are some of the most down-to-earth and entertaining people I know. Always good fun hanging out.
8:30pm: Catch a train and head home. My body is aching from the gym and tomorrow is another early day.