More on Appraisals

I decided to try to find a definition for “generally accepted appraisal guidelines” for the St. Louis County Assessor’s office.  I looked up the Missouri Statute referenced on the reassessment notification.  It is sadly non-descript:

http://revisor.mo.gov/main/OneSection.aspx?section=137.115&bid=35127&hl=

I’m not an attorney.  Normally, I can’t even read legalese.  But surprisingly in this case, the verbiage in this statute is actually fairly understandable, and in rather normal English.  Verbose as usual with legalese, of course, but at least still understandable!  While I didn’t find anything that described specifically what “generally accepted appraisal techniques” were, it did at least go into a bit more detail as to what could be used as comps for the appraisal.

Note this section at the end of the first paragraph:

http://revisor.mo.gov/main/OneSection.aspx?section=137.115&bid=35127&hl=

The items to note here:

• -          Item 1.) – the assessor will be required to use “generally accepted appraisal techniques.”
• -          Item 2b.) – contains a description of what qualifies as a “comparable property” used for performing the appraisal.

In summary, as I, a non-lawyer-person, read it, item one indicates that everyone should be operating from the same set of “generally accepted appraisal techniques,” though I have yet to get an answer from anyone as to what that actually consists of.  Well that’s not entirely true.  In a casual conversation with a friend of mine who has been a realtor for over 30 years, she indicated that you would never compare a ranch to a 2-story, or a new house to a 25-year-old house, or one that had been renovated to one that had not, etc.  Pretty common-sense stuff really, even for someone with no appraisal experience.  But as far as acquiring a definition from the County website or anyone at the County office? --- nothing.

Item 2b is as close to any sort of specific description of what properties could be used in the appraisal process, though it doesn’t detail anything about what to do with the comps once they’ve been matched.  The description is consistent with basic common sense and the factors for comps that my realtor/friend described. 

Simply put -- a comparable property is one that is similar. 

The St. Louis County Assessor’s office seems to have some trouble with a basic understanding of that principle.