Page 6 - 2013 Spring newsletter

BEST PRACTICES “THE SILVER LINING OF THE ECONOMIC
DOWNTURN”
I like to think of myself as an optimist, but there is no sugar coating the economic
devastation and decline in property values that occurred during the last five years.
The enormous drop in the stock market and collapse of the real estate market,
while unemployment and foreclosure figures rose like a high tide, is something
most of us probably never saw coming. Yet, as I dare say, the real estate market
appears to have stabilized, we can begin to see some blue sky among those same
storm clouds that we all had to weather.
While we may have been unprepared for what happened, it was pretty obvious from the beginning of
this chaotic period that we had better come up with some creative ways to get our jobs done. After all,
the responsibilities of the Property Appraiser’s Office hadn’t changed; we still had a tax roll to prepare
each year. While we all endured budget cuts that resulted in less staff and resources, our job got a little
more difficult as we faced the challenge of appraising properties with a limited number of sales, many
of which were foreclosures. We have had to learn to do more with less.
We have all heard the saying ―necessity is the mother of invention‖. This is one of those phrases that
you hear, but you really don’t ―get‖ until you are able to experience it, usually not by choice. It can be
likened to something your parents tell you while you’re growing up, but you really don’t fully under-
stand what they have said until you have that life experience for yourself. Necessity has changed the
way Property Appraisers around the state do business. In a very quiet, unassuming manner, we have
all had to innovate and think outside the box, making some major procedural changes to get our jobs
done. To me, therein lies the ―silver lining‖.
The changes our offices have had to implement over the past five years, whether they involved person-
nel, technology or methodology have reshaped the mass appraisal industry and have made us much
more efficient and effective. These changes are here to stay. Let’s face it, you’re not going to get back
those six appraiser positions you’ve lost or those eight vehicles you had to cut, but then again, we are
finding they are really no longer needed.
Our Property Appraiser, Morgan Gilreath, has written extensively and done several presentations on
appraising in our recent declining market; with everything from using time adjustments, to different
types of market evidence, to comparable neighborhoods, to qualifying foreclosures and short sales. So,
I won’t try to expand on much of that, except to say, the events of the last five years did force our staff
to re-examine the way that we looked at the market and resulted in some significant changes to our
valuation process. These changes involved utilization of more data and detail, and will remain as part
of our tax roll procedures.
Another important component to redefining ourselves has been technology. I find it ironic that at the
same period of time that there was an economic meltdown, there was also a firestorm of technological
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Jan Cornelius, CFE
“For too long, we’ve all been doing our own thing, sometimes duplicating
services or data. ”
Spring 2013 Newsletter of the FCIAAO