Real Estate Appraisers Real estate appraisers provide unbiased estimates of a property's value and quality. This is one of the more interesting and important real estate careers. To some extent, all real estate professionals become appraisers, because knowing property values is so important in all real estate fields. When property is bought, taxed, or insured, a more thorough appraisal is usually needed. Appraisers usually work for banks or for appraisal firms and will normally value properties by finding comparable sales in an area or by estimating the discounted value of cash flows expected from a property.
Appraisers evaluate property for a variety of reasons.
The government must have accurate value estimates to assess property taxes or estate taxes. Banks want to know the value of property they make a loan for. Insurance companies need to know the value of the property they are insuring. Securities brokers must know the value of properties whose mortgages they package and sell to investors. The list goes on.