Announcing the Winner of the Annual Relocation Appraisal Report Writing Contest

Worldwide ERC® and Relocation Appraisal and Consultant (RAC) congratulate the winner of the annual contest: Michael Manley, CRP, IFA.

At the Relocation Appraisal and Consultant (RAC) annual conference, held 15–16 September, Worldwide ERC® and RAC, a premier organization providing valuation solutions for relocation and complex residential properties, announced the winner of the 2022 Relocation Appraisal Report Writing Contest: Michael Manley, CRP, IFA. Judges evaluated the entries based on clarity of communication, internal consistencies, complexities of the report, thoroughness, and completeness.

Manley, the owner of Michael Manley LLC, is a residential appraiser in Littleton, Colorado. He entered the field shortly after graduating from CU Boulder when a friend of his mother’s, Rick Foos, who was looking for a recent college graduate with no real estate experience, hired him and trained him from the ground up. Manley is now a full time relocation appraiser, as well as a certified luxury home appraiser, with 33 years of appraisal management experience in the Denver Metropolitan Area.

This was his first submission to the annual Relocation Appraisal Report Writing Contest. “I have a good friend who has been a RAC member for years who has encouraged me to enter for a while now, and I finally decided to do it. Thanks, Marie!” Manley says.

His report focused on a recent project. “I was fortunate enough to be chosen to complete an appraisal on a fairly complex high end golf course property, though at the time I didn’t feel so lucky,” Manley says. “It was in a fairly new community, and the transferees had built the home only a couple of years ago. As it was complex, it took a great deal of time and effort, but the effort paid off. I was pretty confident I had fully analyzed the market, the unique gated subdivision, the subject property, and reconciled an accurate anticipated sales price.”

While mortgage appraisal and relocation appraisals are the two most common forms of appraisals, they use a completely different criterion from report format to intent of purpose. “Relocation appraising requires a higher skill level: an ability to analyze markets and competing sales above and beyond mortgage appraising,” Manley says. A mortgage appraisal’s intent is focused on the opinion of value, and it is used to evaluate a lending institution’s risk when offering a loan. On the other hand, appraising relocation properties using the Worldwide ERC® Summary Appraisal Report methodology takes not only expertise in the field of appraisals but unique experience working with corporate home purchase programs.

This is because the Worldwide ERC Summary Appraisal Report calls for more detailed analysis that goes beyond what is needed for a mortgage appraisal. A Worldwide ERC Summary Appraisal Report must have thorough analysis of all market factors, and more detailed, narrative-focused evaluations such as an evaluation on a home’s interior decoration rather than just the design or condition of the home. “To me it’s really about effort and keeping your skills sharp,” Manley says. “Taking the time to analyze the competing market and comparable sales and listings is critical.”

With no set formula to rely on, relocation appraisers must react quickly to market and demographic trends to reach their conclusions about the relocation properties that they evaluate. “Forecasting is done by analyzing the past trends in the subject property’s competing market and looking at current trends and projecting how and if those trends will apply over the estimated marketing time of the subject property. It impacts future price trends and marketing times and has to be applied to each comp analyzed,” Manley says. “This is a particular skill possessed by relocation appraisers.” Forecasting adjustments are then applied both to comparable sales and the valuation for the subject property.

Congratulations to Michael Manley and his thorough work on the Worldwide ERC Summary Appraisal Report. The prize included complimentary entry to RAC Conference 2022, a $500 gift card, and Worldwide ERC® Spring Conference registration. Manley is now currently in the process of joining RAC.