STEVE:  Hi.  Steve Westmark again.  Thanks so much for watching my weekly video blog again.  This week, I’m talking to an appraiser, somebody who’s been doing appraisals for over 30 years.  And he’s Clarke Goset with Goset Appraisals.  Welcome, Clarke.

 CLARKE:  Thank you, Steve.

 STEVE:  Clarke, first I’d like you to talk a little bit about appraising for a seller, maybe appraising their property before putting it on the market.  Do you recommend that type of thing, and how do you go about doing that?

 CLARKE:  Thank you, Steve, I’m glad you asked that question.  Basically, the difference between an appraiser and a real estate agent is the agent’s going to make friends with the clients, and most agents unfortunately carry that to the extent of wanting to tell a client everything the client wants to hear.  Sometimes in the process, particularly in this market, which has been some very difficult times, sellers need to hear the truth. 

 And that’s what we like to think we bring, the element of the realistic market exposure, what’s going to happen with that listing to show the clients that perhaps the house isn’t worth quite what they thought it was or hoped it was.

 STEVE:  Well, besides a good seller’s appraisal, what are some of the other things, Clarke, that you’re hired to do and help people in an appraisal?

 CLARKE:  A lot of things that we do are legal related.  We can do divorce cases.  We can do right away condemnations.  We have been doing a lot of estate work over the recent past.  I’ve been blessed over 30 years to have picked up pretty much the entire spectrum of real estate activity.  We do a lot of commercial work for clients.  Just across the entire scope of appraisal evaluation, anywhere where somebody is concerned about a value or a particular effect to value or roadway or marketplace, whatever it might be going on with a particular property at a particular time.

STEVE:  Well, my final question, Clarke, to deal with is kind of dealing with the analysis, and it runs to be sometimes 20-30 pages for that analysis.  What goes on in that market analysis as you’re trying to do a study on it?

 CLARKE:  It’s remarkable that the more things change and the older we get, the more things stay the same.  It is still location, location, location.  I think today when we take a look at it whether it’s an appraiser looking at it or whether it’s an experienced real estate agent such as yourself taking a look at it, the important thing is to get the location equal. 

 At that point, then what we’re going to do is we’re going to go back a short period of time.  Appraisers like to use six months.  Sometimes we can use a bit longer time.  But we can use a comprehensive analysis in the sense that what we’re doing here is we’re going to look at like to like.  In other words, let’s match the property.  If we’re dealing with a three-bedroom rambler, one-car garage, let’s talk about a three-bedroom rambler, one-car garage.

 Let’s make those properties that we use mate.  The other thing that’s a lot different is that in the old days we used to use just three comparable sold properties, pass it through.  We didn’t need to worry about it because if we got it a little bit high, the value was going to make that next week.  That isn’t the case anymore where we’ve seen a declining property value. 

 What we’re going to want to do in a case like this is we’re going to want to use five, six, seven, sometimes up to nine comparable solds, mating that property with the location, with the size, with the style and all of the rest of the things that we do to make that property sell in this marketplace.

STEVE:  Well, you can tell from just hearing Clarke he has a wealth of knowledge.  And that’s why I look to Clarke to help me in appraisals.  And thanks so much today for coming in and meeting with me, Clarke.

CLARKE:  Thanks for having me, Steve.  I really enjoyed being here.