_Fee Simplistic is a regular post by Martin Tessler, whom after 30 years of commercial fee appraiser-related experience, gets to the bottom of real issues by seeing the both the trees and the forest. He has never been accused of being a man of few words and his commentary can’t be inspired on a specific day of the week. In this post, he oozes sarcasm with a way to capitalize on the lack of reality in our profession._ …Jonathan Miller

The travails of the industry: AMC’s, appraisal layoffs, fee squeezing, ever shortening deadlines, the latest mind-bending epistles from USPAP and the Appraisal Foundation, admonitions from Chief Credit Officers that their cadres will have to get serious about appraisal quality, etc. etc. When is this all going to end? Well kids, I doubt if it will. So what is one to do if there is no light at the end of the tunnel? Why not reinvent ourselves into the pop culture rage of the times-?

CELEBRITY APPRAISALS:A REALITY SHOW.

One of the advantages of being domiciled in New York City is that we have no dearth of celebrities, celebrity neighborhoods and celebrity apartments.

Hollywood, Broadway, and TV stars, star Chefs, Artists, Singers, Rappers, Moguls, Millionaires, Zillionaires and last but not least Celebrity Felons-you name it and we have them here. No doubt the appraisal world has been invited in to appraise many of these properties that have been bought by the celebs so why not feature them on a celebrity appraisal reality TV show?

Ethics and the right to privacy would prevent the identification of the owners of course but the fun would come in having the viewing audience guess whose condo, co-op, or townhouse is being featured. The country would not only be playing the latest real estate game craze of “how much is it worth” but the added attraction would be to guess whose property it is (Brad’s JLo’s, Jennifer’s etc.). And that’s just for Manhattan – think of the fun we could have in the Hamptons, Hollywood, Aspen, Vail, Sun Valley, Big Sky Montana, and the latest hot shot emerging neighborhood yet to be discovered (which could be a complete other show-“UPANDCOMINGPROPERTIES”).

The AMC’s will never get a foothold in this venture and USPAP may even turn into a rating agency for TV viewership.

_Semper Fee Simplistic_


3 Comments

  1. Arthur Gary July 19, 2006 at 10:53 pm

    It was foretold that one day Marty would build a blog at a site called soapbox. You’ve made us very proud! Semper Fee Simplistic!

  2. Lee Roy July 20, 2006 at 11:20 am

    Finally! It took someone like Tessler, with their finger on the pulse of the Real Estate Industry as well a keen sense of what pop culture demands to suggest something like this. Kudos!

  3. Koby August 22, 2006 at 2:15 am

    As a long time (and many firmed) commercial appraisal trainee, I actually had this idea myself. Has anyone seen the show on Fox called Hell’s Kitchen? Imagine that with a group of hungry commercial (or residential if you like) trainees and one “big shot” chief appraiser who barks out orders and pushes them into the swimming pool of appriasing before they can swim. The last one standing wins their own appraisal firm.

    But what am I saying… this already goes on in every city across this country every day…

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