The alternatives — including when to use them
There are five other ways to get a number, and three of them are sometimes the right answer. Here is what each one is actually good at, what it costs you, and the cases where we will tell you to go and use it instead of hiring us.
What each option actually delivers
A tilde means it depends on who you get — which is itself the point in one of these columns.
| An independent appraiser | An appraisal management company | A dealer or auction house | An online valuation service | An AVM or a website estimate | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Signed by a credentialed appraiser | Yes | Sometimes | No | No | No |
| USPAP-compliant written report | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Acceptable to the IRS as a qualified appraisal | Yes | Sometimes | No | No | No |
| Usable in court, with the author available to testify | Yes | Sometimes | No | No | No |
| You speak to the person doing the work | Yes | No | Yes | No | Not applicable |
| Fee known and fixed before work begins | Yes | Sometimes | No | Yes | Yes |
| No interest in buying what is being valued | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Handles personal property, machinery, real estate and business interests | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Retrospective and date-of-death work | Yes | Sometimes | No | No | No |
| Turnaround measured in days | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Costs nothing | No | No | Sometimes | No | Yes |
↔ Swipe the table sideways to see every column.
✓ Yes ~ Depends on who you get — No
Each one, on its merits
Written the way we would want a competitor to write about us.
An appraisal management company
An AMC is an intermediary. It takes the order, assigns it to a panel appraiser, and takes a share of the fee. For a routine lender-ordered residential appraisal that machinery exists for a reason and it works.
What you give up is knowing who is doing the work, and the ability to talk to them. The appraiser is chosen for panel availability and turn time, and a share of what you pay does not go toward the analysis. For anything where competence in a specific property type matters — an equipment fleet, a collection, a contested matter — that is the wrong selection criterion.
Use an AMC when a lender requires it. We accept AMC engagements and are on panels; we simply think you should know what the model does and does not optimise for.
A dealer, auction house, or gallery
A dealer often knows the market better than anyone. If you want to know what something will actually sell for next month, a good dealer is a genuinely excellent source, and frequently free.
The problem is structural, not personal: a dealer who might buy, consign, or sell the item has an interest in the number. That conflict is exactly what the IRS excluded-appraiser rules are written to catch, and it is the first thing opposing counsel will raise. A dealer letter is also not a USPAP report and contains almost none of the required content.
Use a dealer when you are selling and want market intelligence. Do not use one when a third party has to be persuaded — the IRS, a court, an insurer, a co-beneficiary.
An online valuation service
Fast, cheap, and for low-value items where nobody will challenge the number, entirely reasonable. If you need a rough figure for your own planning, this is a sensible place to start.
What you get is a research summary, not an appraisal. Typically no inspection, no USPAP compliance, no named appraiser with verifiable credentials in that property type, no certification, and nobody who will appear and testify. For IRS purposes most of these do not meet the qualified appraisal definition, and the donor bears that risk, not the service.
Use one for curiosity and for insurance riders on modest items. Do not use one for a deduction, an estate filing, or a dispute.
A Zestimate, an AVM, or a tax assessment
An automated model over public records and past sales. Free, instant, and a perfectly good sanity check.
It has never seen the property. It cannot know about the remodel, the foundation problem, the easement, the functional obsolescence, or the fact that the comparable two doors down sold between family members. It also has no effective date discipline — which makes it useless for anything retrospective. No lender, court, or examiner treats it as an appraisal, and neither should you.
Use it to decide whether a conversation is worth having. Nothing else.
Doing nothing
Sometimes the right answer. If the amounts are small, the parties agree, and no filing requires it, an appraisal is a cost with no return.
Where it goes wrong is when a threshold is crossed without anyone noticing — a noncash donation aggregating past $5,000 across several charities, an estate that needed date-of-death values before assets were distributed, a floodplain permit that crossed 50 percent mid-build.
Use our free tools to find out whether you are under a threshold. Three of the four will sometimes tell you that you do not need us.
What we actually differ on
Setting the comparison aside, there are four things about how this firm works that we would want to know if we were hiring an appraiser.
One appraiser, four disciplines
A single estate can hold a house, a tractor, a gun collection, and an interest in a family business. The usual answer is four firms and four reports that do not reconcile with each other. We cover all four, so the effective date is consistent, the assumptions are consistent, and there is one person to ask.
Instructor-level command of the standard
The principal is an AQB Certified USPAP Instructor and has taught the standard to more than a thousand professionals. That means instructor-level command of the standards — not just practitioner-level familiarity. In a contested matter it is the difference between knowing the rule and knowing why the rule is written that way.
Fixed fees, never contingent
Scope and fee agreed in writing before any work begins, and no hourly meter. Fees are never contingent on the value concluded — that is prohibited under USPAP, and it would make the report worthless anyway.
We will talk you out of it
If your matter does not need a full appraisal we will say so, and the free tools on this site are built partly so you can find that out without calling anyone. We would rather have the referral than the fee.
We accept AMC engagements, we are on panels, and we are not going to pretend otherwise while criticising the model. Both things are true: the AMC structure exists to solve a real problem for lenders, and it optimises for panel availability and turn time rather than for depth in a particular property type.
If you are a lender or an AMC and the assignment is complex — rural, acreage, mixed use, an equipment component, litigation exposure — that is exactly the work we want, and it is the work the ordinary panel rotation handles least well.
Questions about choosing an appraiser
Will you tell me if I do not need an appraisal?
Yes, and it happens regularly. Under the IRS thresholds a great deal of noncash donation activity needs no appraisal at all. Our free tools will usually tell you before you even call.
Is a cheaper appraisal ever fine?
Often. A restricted report for your own internal planning costs less and is entirely appropriate where nobody else will read it. The mistake is buying the cheap format for a purpose that required the full one.
Do you do broker price opinions or comparative market analyses?
No. Those are real estate brokerage products and they have their place, but they are not appraisals and offering both would blur a line we would rather keep sharp.
Why should I not just use the county assessor's value?
Because it is produced en masse for taxation on a statutory date, using mass-appraisal methods and without anyone looking at your property. In Arizona the valuation date for real property is January 1 of the year preceding the levy year — which is not today's value, and often not the date your matter needs either.
Do you ever buy items you appraise?
No, and we never will. An appraiser who is also a buyer has an interest in your number being low, and that conflict is what makes a report indefensible.
Not sure which of these you actually need?
Tell us the purpose and who has to accept the number. If the honest answer is that you do not need an appraiser, we will say so.