Recruiting and Retaining Entry-Level Appraisal Candidates

Transcript:

1:16 - Jeff Weiner

Okay, I think I think the number of attendees has slowed down and joined so I think we'll go ahead and get started.

1:24 - Jeff Weiner

 Alrighty so thank you, everybody. My name is Jeff Weiner, I'm the CEO and Co-founder here at Realquantum and this is our next installment of the highest and best-used webinar series as part of our webinar and blog series dedicated to helping appraisers advance in their careers and delivering really useful information that people can take advantage of it sponsored as always by Realquantum.

1:51- Jeff Weiner

Realquantum helps commercial appraisers eliminate tedious work and earn 50% more revenue. It's used by fee appraisers, tax assessors, departments of transportation, accounting firms, and financial institutions across the U.S. and Canada.

2:05 - Jeff Weiner

So today our focus is on the highest investment webinar series specifically about recruiting and retaining young appraisal candidates. And so we have, I'm really excited there are three people here that are joining me today.

2:21- Jeff Weiner

So the first one is Matt Speer, he's the Vice President and Partner at Keller Craig & Associates, and also as a disclaimer a Co-founder of Realquantum. And joining Matt are Elaina Grantham and Avery Parrish.

2:34 - Jeff Weiner

These are two appraisal candidates, can excuse me, Avery you are an associate appraiser and Elaina you are a commercial real estate appraiser. And so both of them are joining me today. I'm really excited.

2:45 - Jeff Weiner

So I want to start with a really brief introduction bio. So matt, why don't you start and give us a few seconds about who you are, so everybody knows.

2:53 - Matt Speer

Yeah, So vice president of Keller, Craig & Associates. Like Jeff said, I’m a Co-founder at Realquantum. I run most of the day-to-day operations at Keller, Craig & Associates. We are a firm of 23 appraisers on staff, so we've been really focused on growth, and yeah.

3:18 - Elaina Grantham

I'm Elaina Grantham. I started here around April of 2022, so coming up on a year. Yeah, but I've been doing appraising for close to three years.

3:25 - Jeff Weiner

And are you close to becoming certified?

3:33 - Elaina Grantham

Not yet, but I am very close, very close.

3:36 - Avery Parish

Yeah, I'm Avery Parish I started here in May of 2020 I believe. 21. Yeah, it's been a while.

3:47 - Jeff Weiner 

It's a grey area, too. 

3:48 - Avery Parish

Yeah, I graduated from Pittsburg State University with degrees and finance and economics.

3:57 - Jeff Weiner

Beautiful, awesome. All right, well thank you all three for joining today. So here are the topics that we're gonna cover.

4:04 - Jeff Weiner

All right, we're gonna go through some strategies for recruiting and attracting entry-level appraisal candidates and we're going to get that, Both from the person creating the strategy now and from the entry-level appraisal candidates creating a positive, encouraging work environment, how modern software and tech can keep those entry-level appraisers motivated, engaged building a mentorship program and providing opportunities for career development. So that's a lot of topics to cover. We could talk for many, many hours on that, but we'll start from there. And then we're gonna make sure, let me just talk a little bit about logistics. So there's a chat button and a Q&A button, so please feel free as we're going through this, we're gonna make it dynamic just like we do with all of our sessions, ask questions, add comments or observations and we'll do our best to get through the questions as we talk through the hour.

4:58 - Jeff Weiner

Okay, So I'm gonna stop sharing here so we can see everybody and okay, so the first thing, why don't we start with strategies for recruiting and attracting candidates. Now, the first thing that, and the reason why I wanted to do this discussion is that there's a lot of, there's, there's a problem, right? There are not enough appraisers getting into commercial appraisal is a big task for anybody, right? It's a complicated effort. There's a lot of extra training and certifications in that journey of apprenticeship, right? So a lot of appraisers just say it's too much trouble, but you guys clearly didn't and you're thriving. So what, what approach, what strategy did you follow, and to start with, why did you decide to do it? Because everybody, so many other people have the opinion that it's just a lot of work.

5:52 - Matt Speer

Well, so when we took over operations in 2019 we knew we really wanted to grow, you know, we took over a strong base, you know that Tim Keller and Dan Craig had built a very strong base in the Kansas City area and we wanted to take what they've done and really grow to the next level. So, you know, we realized at the time, I think we had 10 or 12 people on staff and so we wanted to grow and to do that, you know, the best way to do it is to train from the ground up because, you know, most appraisers they're happy with where they're at, it's hard to find appraisers that are certified senior, lots of experience. So the best way to do that just takes it from the ground up and you know, that was kind of the way of.

6:37 - Jeff Weiner

That's good. So you're growing organically, you're not just trying to acquire other firms in the area, it's good. Okay, so then had to go about doing it?

6:41 - Matt Speer

Some of its luck. But you know, we, you know, we had a lot of people reach out to us that, you know wanted to become appraisers. So, you know, like, you know, Elaina is a second-generation appraiser. So she knew she knew the business already, know Avery came to us from a friend that he went to church with and so everyone's got a different story but you know we made it known that we wanted to grow and talk to us. We've been out, you know we're very active in the appraisal institute. I was the Kansas City chapter president in 2019 and my business partner was the president in 2022. So you know we've been out in the community let it known that we let it be known that we want to grow, we want to talk to you, we've also done internships with UMKC done summer internships bring, trying to bring people in that are in college right?

7:45 - Jeff Weiner

So and that's that takes a lot of that, that takes a fair amount of work right to go find that people do the recruiting, get them in teaching something. 

7:56 - Matt Speer

It does you know, and the hardest thing is you know, you know make them productive over the summer so they feel like they're providing a value add while so you're kind of giving them a feel for what they would do in the industry with realizing they're only gonna be there a couple of months

8:10 - Jeff Weiner

And hopefully, you can get some valuable work out in the process, you know that'd be good. That's good. Okay. Yeah so so let's then switch gears. So Elaina you're second generation, what was your degree again?

8:27 - Elaina Grantham

I was in Business and Economics.

8:28 - Jeff Weiner

Okay so not specifically in accounting or finance but certainly in business and economics. So what was it about appraisal? Certainly, it's the family business, but what made you decide to want to do this?

8:44 - Elaina Grantham

So yeah my journey was a little winding, which I feel that's a lot of appraisers, but after undergrad, I actually wanted to go into psychology, so I was in grad school for about a year looking to be like a counseling therapist. But that was during Covid, Covid hit right when I started we went online and I needed a part-time job while I was going through school and my mom had actually just started her own appraisal company and she needed help, she needed a trainee and so it's like but I definitely didn't have my sights set on being an appraiser, it was more just oh yeah I hope my mom gets her business off the ground. So I got started into it and I realized that I actually found kind of a really strong interest in the topics and what I was doing. So I decided to switch gears and stop going to grad school and go to appraisal full time.

9:55 - Jeff Weiner

That’s awesome, being a therapist and being in the mental health industry is wonderful. We need more of them. But, the money is better in this one. 

10:03 - Elaina Grantham

I'm gonna say that was a factor for sure. Yeah.

10:04 - Jeff Weiner

Well, good. Okay. So Avery in your case, you have a degree that's very relevant.So you get to this spot? 

10:09 - Avery Parish

Basically, I graduated during Covid and so there is not a lot of places doing immediate hiring. So I was spending a lot of time doing a lot of research and a lot of different fields. And I had a family friend who I went to church who was willing to sit down and talk to me about appraisal because he did. And it interested me because it blended finance and economics and a lot of the stuff that I had been studying over the last four years of college. And so then he led me to Matt and Daniel and then I was able to sit down and talk with them over the course of the next month or month and a half and then just hearing their thoughts on appraisal really gave me a bigger idea of what appraisal is.

11:08 - Jeff Weiner

So, you worked your network, you did what amounted to a career interview. Right? Get some advice and found it. So, you both came to this team as you've talked to peers, you know, either classmates or friends, how how do you tell the story about how you decided to do it and then you encountered others in any similar situation. They've found this interesting either through school or elsewhere.

11:44 - Avery Parish

None of my peers have pursued appraisal at least in my friend group or not. But when I talk to people about it, I like to mention a lot of the opportunities as the average age of appraisers like almost 60 or above 60 at this point. And so it's just one of those if you can get in right now, especially when you know there aren't a lot of young appraisers, there's a lot of opportunities to grow and take over existing books of business, so to speak.

12:16 - Jeff Weiner

Yeah, that's a really good point. So what kind of what? So you started to answer this right? So elaborate a little bit more. And so what would you advise, either people that have been in other accounting and finance or real estate roles or are about to graduate, what kind of advice would you give them?

12:36 - Avery Parish

Yeah. So I was pursuing accounting at one point during my college career and I decided the number-crunching part of things was not for me, which was what made me switch to economics, which is a lot more research-based. And that's the thing that I really love about appraisals you're constantly researching the market and the market is always shifting. And so you really have to stay on top of things and 

13:03 

But there's not, it's not theoretical. So you know, your dollars still have to add up at the end, and that's good. So let me alter that a little bit Elaina for you, how what would you advise potential appraiser employers to do to make it, you know, to align themselves with what potential appraiser candidates coming out of school or recently in school do.

13:29 - Elaina Grantham

Yeah, I think the biggest thing for me about appraisal is the flexibility of the scheduling. I think that's a huge selling point. Kind of working at your own pace and you can essentially make as much money as you want if you're willing to put in the work. 

13:54 - Jeff Weiner

And flexibility and work-life balance is it's, I mean it's, it's become kind of a cliche at this point that a gen z or an early millennial is all about, you know, I don't live to work, I work to live right? And so that sounds like that would be a deemed, that makes sense. The flip side of that. I'll ask you guys both though if it's not a straight salary, you know, it's paid on production. Is that, is that worrisome to you guys or to other people you talk to about that flexibility has it, you know, the flip side of flexibility is that right?

14:31 - Elaina Grantham

I think that's my favorite part of the job really is to me it's motivating to work more to work harder and I see a lot of people that are just, you know, talking in their 9-5 and just like total in their thumbs all day at work and I'm like, I do not envy you.

14:49 - Jeff Weiner

Right, right. Yeah, your contributions are measured on a monthly basis literally, right? You know, it comes through now if anybody is really concerned about that or has some other reasons why a very conservative approach is necessary. There there are appraisal skills that are within government and banking institutions as well. Right? So those are salary positions and I know that looking at the registration list, there are a couple of states and financial institutions that are on here. But when it comes to being the appraiser, you know, that combo the flexibility and your own compensation. That's, I'm glad you described it that way. I really wasn't thinking about it that way, that's really good.

15:33 - Matt Speer

So if anything, the pressure is on the company, we've got to bring it up business too, you know, to keep them busy.

15:39 - Jeff Weiner

Exactly. It's like, well, if I can make my own brain, why do I need to be here, you know, in this? So that's a really good point. Okay, so, let's switch from attracting to retaining. That's one thing you mentioned, which is keeping a steady pipeline of new work. That's one thing. What other things do you put in the list of retention that you are working to make sure you guys do, 

16:07 - Matt Speer

Well, we want a good, you know, company environment, We want people to want to be in the office. So you know, we have people that work from home and people who work in the office with people who do a combo, but you know, we just want a good, you know, a good environment for people, want to make sure we've got enough work, we've got types of work that people enjoy. You know, everybody, you know, a commercial appraisal is a very broad thing. So there are lots of different property types and everybody kind of finds their niche of what they enjoy the most. So you know, we try to line that up, you know, we have some people who really enjoy doing apartments, some people that really enjoy doing hotels, some people that really enjoy doing condemnation and eminent domain type work. So you know, we try to line people up with their strengths and try to broaden their horizons too.

16:56 - Jeff Weiner

Right. And so that's a good point. And, that's, so than Elaina and Avery, how does that fit? You know, that, that seems like that's another flexibility point, right? 

17:10 - Avery Parish

I think so far in my experience, Matt and Daniel have both given us, or at least me, a lot of different property types and I've been able to work on a lot of different things, but if I go and tell them, hey, I really like doing this, they'll definitely try to send more of that word my way and that, that's really helpful. I mean it's really nice for my side, you know, being like, hey, I really enjoy this property type, and doing more of those is definitely nice bonus.

17:46 - Jeff Weiner

So that's a good point too. So matt, there's, there's a challenge in different types of apprentice-style work environments, you know, take it out of appraisal for a moment, right? Is that that the new person has to quote, pay their dues or you know, start from the ground up or you know, I had a nephew that was really into car repair and maintenance and the garage. He was, that just gave him oil changes all day long and said forget this and now he's actually an electrician. So it soured him on the industry completely and he left. So that's another thing, right? So as you think about that, so Matt, Daniel, Matt, you and you and your business partner, Daniel your principles. But there are several other senior appraisers at your firm as well. How do you balance mentorship and coaching with giving the newest people enough, you know, meat in their work to keep them excited?

18:53 - Matt Speer

It's a challenge. But so you know, with our, you know, one of our senior people who really likes eminent domain, and eminent domain work isn't something that a lot of entry-level apprasiers are going to do because every assignment is completely unique. So you know, he's kind of off in his own world. And then as far as like mentoring, you know for the most part, you know we try to, you know I work with Elaina a lot. Daniel works with Avery a lot but we do kind of mix and match a little bit depending on the assignments to come in and you know who that client wants to, you know be the primary appraiser on that report. So I don't know that there's like a process in place. You just you know, you know what each person excels at and you try to you know keep them, you know to push that kind of work to them if it's available. And if not, you know that it's gonna be a learning process. You need to set aside more time for that assignment.

19:57 - Jeff Weiner 

Yeah, that's a good point. Because that's so I'm so for everybody watching, right? So I'm not an appraiser by trade. I am in the software technology space, but when it comes to software engineers it's the same kind of thing. Especially with interns that you mentioned before, right? Is that the extreme situation where they know the minimum amount and they have the shortest amount of time to contribute something? So you want to give them something that's interesting. But then you know you don't want to just create make work and you want to, you know, so then you have entry-level individuals that are starting to learn, you have to balance how much you can give them without feeling like you're gonna drown the person.

20:36 - Elaina Grantham

I was just going to add that both Matt and Daniel are fantastic mentors and something that makes them really good mentors is just the open-door policy. Anytime you have a question about something, you just kind of pop in and be like, hey, I'm a little confused about this and you're not, sometimes when you start entry level, you're afraid to ask questions because you just, you want to do well and you want to, you know, prove yourself. They do a really good job of just helping you understand the process so that you can eventually do it on your own.

21:07 - Jeff Weiner

That's really good. Right. So there's, there's a, there's an important skill for both sides, right? That is, that really helps the process of mentorship, right? So the senior needs to be encouraging and patient and have an open door just not physically, but you know, emotionally to be accepting and encouraging, not be super critical not being willing to work through mistakes and take a little risk. And then of course the, on the person's side who's learning, it's, it's about doing, going through the effort, doing your best to answer a question, but don't spin your wheels and waste time, right. Show up with, here's what I, here's my problem, here's what I think it maybe I'm kind of stuck here, right? So you get as far as you can without saying, yeah, I'm gonna miss my deadline because I spent three days looking at this one thing that you could have told me in 90 seconds. So it's a, it's a balance for both parties. That's really good. It sounds like you guys have found a good balance too, so more about creating a positive, encouraging work environment, right? Anything else besides that? I notice we've got like you said, hybrid, some people live most of the time, some people remote, and some in between what other things do you think are healthy?

22:25 - Matt Speer

Well, you know, a couple of years ago we bought everyone t-shirts, you know, that's good, 

22:36 - Jeff Weiner

You need to get another batch. How has? So it's not on this agenda, but it's always in the news now, especially, you know when it comes to commercial real estate and office occupancy, I work in the office here, Monday Wednesday Friday, you guys are usually in here those days, but not everybody. Is, is it really helpful if brand-new folks are usually face-to-face or not? What do you guys? I want to hear all three of you. 

23:07 - Elaina Grantham

I would say absolutely. Being here, being able to ask questions, being able to bounce ideas off of people like even Avery and I were both new to this, but like, well like just talking out loud and be like, oh I didn't think of that like Yeah that makes sense. You know just talking out loud, is helpful.

23:22 - Avery Parish

Yeah. I think any time that you can be in a space with other appraisers and just talk either someone more experienced who has a lot more experience in different property types and talking things through them is helpful. But even like Elaina was saying talking it out with each other is sometimes maybe you've had recent work in a similar area or whatnot and then there is a wealth of resources for whatever property type you're working on or maybe they have just done some research that helps contribute to whatever you're working on. And I think that is really helpful and at least facilitating a culture where you can ask even peer level or senior level painful bit those questions is helpful.

24:12 - Jeff Weiner

Yeah, I'm a fan of it as easy as instant messaging is it feels like all conversations when you're not face to face are only intentional conversations you have to decide. I need to go talk to Avery about this. You know, are you there? Can we chat? You know and then you ask your question but you don't get any cross-talk information right well on that.

24:40 - Matt Speer

You know, you don't get to know either. You know you don't get to know anybody. It's everything is just work-related. You don't get to learn anything about them.

24:47 - Jeff Weiner

Yeah and it's not just about you know I want to, you know, one of these situations where it is, it's 8:02 and everybody is not in the office yet. It's not showing up. It should be at your desk and that means, therefore, you're working. But you know, you get to know people better faster, right? You get to kind of understand work patterns and it's easier to sense if somebody's struggling or maybe you could use some more whereas, you know, whatever is happening in their life. So needless to say, I'm a big fan, you know, I'm face to face.

25:53 - Matt Speer

And if you're in the office, it's a lot easier to just walk over and say, hey, I'm struggling with this. Rather than typing up a big message or a phone call and I can't answer it. She knows he's not on the phone. You can answer this question.

25:32 - Jeff Weiner

Yes. Okay. That's really good. All right. So modern software and technology, Right? How did they keep entry, entry-level appraisers motivated and engaged? So, we know from Realquantum's research that about 82% of appraisers are straight word Excel or some even some are even or google, you know, google G suite or something like that. And the others use some combination of either enterprise that have built their own tools or something else because most of it is word Excel, a lot of that and Most of the average appraisers, 62, those word excel templates Probably have a median age of 15 to 20 years, long time. So I'm, it's, I apologize, this is a leading question but it sounds in retrospect this is a leading question. It wasn't intended to be that way. So there are lots of people that have a manual process and then there are other companies out there that have tool sets that are used. So, Elaina, I remember talking to you, you've worked on more than one platform. Avery have you? You've only worked in one and man you've worked a few. Okay, so let me start with you. Elaina tell me, and please be honest, especially if there's something negative that you wish for better. So is the tool set helpful in your learning process or not or, to what extent does it affect your learning process, let's say it that way. 

27:18 - Elaina Grantham

I can tell you from where the tools that I was using previously to now. Realquantum, I feel like my efficiency and production have increased. I don't, it's hard to quantify because I was kind of in training but I can tell you that the systems that we have with Real Quantum are so much more streamlined easier, and more efficient than what I was using previously it's hard to like put it into words exactly how just what I was using before was very clunky. The best word I can use.  Because we didn't prep this question in advance.

27:59 - Jeff Weiner 

Because we didn't prep this question in advance. No, that's good. Okay. Avery in your case you're learning appraisal in this environment for the first time. So I know there's a little objectivity challenge I guess from that point of view. But what's your general thought?

28:14 - Avery Parish

Yeah, I mean I've enjoyed using real quantum in the sense that it's made it one last thing that I feel like I have to worry about where there are tabs for every part of your appraisal and so like I know where to find everything. It wasn't scrolling through pages and pages of a word doc to get to each section or anything. You got very organized tabs. You can get to everything, you can reference it easier with other people so I can call up Daniel or matt, whoever is reviewing my stuff, and be like oh in this section of the report, and then it's just really easy to communicate between one another as well. And then the built-in database is super helpful because I mean we have 23 appraisers so you don't know what other people are working on all the time but they might have input comps that are helpful to you and you have that reference right there, to pull from data that they've already, 

29:21 - Matt Speer

You can quickly search for similar assignments, too.

29:23 - Jeff Weiner

Yeah okay, that's really good. So you have some examples you can draw on yeah or you can shoot one of these guys, the link says, hey look at this assignment we did two months ago 

29:34 - Matt Speer

Exactly because you know, with, you know, with the team as big as it is probably handled a similar problem before, so you know, no matter what it is, it's like, well, if you guys have praised the zoo, yeah, look at this one. 

29:52 - Jeff Weiner

We bought a zoo and somebody had to appraise it. That's really good. Okay, well that's good and, and that's, that's one of the things, you know, the reason we created a product in part was so you can get away from the mechanics of juggling spreadsheets and word and just focus on the appraisal side. So that’s good. Okay, building a mentorship program and switching gears to that. We talked a little bit about it, but specifically within this profession, there are guidelines for mentorship for somebody to journey from just being a candidate for being certified general up to and including actually being in the eye if they choose to. Right, so Matt, when you and Daniel approach that with, Elaina and Avery and others on the team. How did you go about making that happen?

30:44 - Matt Speer

So in the state of Kansas, you can have, you can have up to three training appraisers working with you at any one time. So at Keller, Craig we have four people willing to supervise. Based on, you know who's got, you know who can take on another trainee So, for the most part, it's been Daniel and I up to this point that we've gotten over the last year, we've got three people certified and hopefully, Elaina is following very quickly so and you know, we try, you know, so with the way, it's set up, you know the state really wants you to work with kind of one supervisor, one mentor but we try to process but we also try to have them work with everybody because you know the way I approach a problem is different than the way Daniel approaches the problem is different than the other two appraisers approach a problem. So the more of these people you work with, the more you can find what works best for you. Because the way I approach a problem may not work ever or may not be the best way. So that way if you get a chance to work with all four of them, you can, you know, look at, you know, hey, I like what matt does or like what Daniel does here and you know create your own system.

32:07 - Jeff Weiner

Okay, so that makes sense. Tell me about time management right? Because one of the things that people talk about as I talk to people with you appraisal institute conferences or on the forums, they talk about the time commitment so you know, how do you deal with that well, or what's your answer to that?

32:31 - Matt Speer

It depends on what you want, right? If you just wanna, you know, praise full time and just, you know, be a one person shop and that's great. If you want to grow a business, you're gonna need to get more appraisers in to help you and so you know, for me, I'm mostly answering questions, mentoring, helping people get through their problems, and then, you know, fitting in appraises as I had time.

33:00 - Jeff Weiner

Right, That's an important point. Are you a business owner or a gig worker? 

33:07 - Matt Speer

Are you working on your business or in your business?

33:09 - Jeff Weiner

Yeah. Okay, that's a good point. So Avery and Elaina, when you think about mentorship, what are the things because you guys are both looking at the requirements for the state and possibly for the appraisal institute, I don't know. But you know, what are you focused on? What what are you concerned with? What worries you? What are your priorities?

33:35 - Elaina Grantham

I mean, well just like you were saying earlier, I just had a thought of working with different supervisors has been extremely valuable, so I mainly worked with matt for my certification. But then I've also worked with Daniel, I started with my mom who started training me and then I've also worked with another senior appraiser here, and just like matt was saying like everyone just has a different thought process that goes into reviewing and how they would handle a problem and that has just been so valuable to just see how everyone's mind works in every situation and kind of getting a broad view of what appraisal come off like and every, there are just so many different ways its going to cap. 

34:30 - Matt Speer

You know, so for example, and I thought it was very ticky tack on my reviews until she had someone else, you know, that was easy. 

34:39 - Jeff Weiner

Not nearly as persnickety, so that's an important point. Alright, so matt I need some help, there are a lot of sole proprietors, and more than half of commercial appraisers I believe are sole proprietors. And I've talked to several who are, you know, may have one person or two people that are interested and are there opportunities that somebody in that position could, is there something they should do because you're not gonna get 3 to 5 opinions about something in a one-person shop, but you gotta start somewhere, you know, you gotta start, you know, your first one or two candidates, so what do you advise somebody in that situation? 

35:19 - Matt Speer

As far as wanting to grow their business?

35:20 - Jeff Weiner

Well? Mentorship specifically, is it okay if it's one person, is there another place that they could get some outside input, they even need it, what do you think?

35:32 - Matt Speer

Well, you know, if you just want outside input, you know, I'd start by getting involved with the appraisal institute or another organization, just so that you have a network that you know if you're stumped off something you can call and talk to somebody to brainstorm.

35:49 - Jeff Weiner

I wonder if and now obviously I'm asking a question that I could have found out, so I apologize for that, but I'm thinking of it now, is that I wonder are you aware of any chapter activities that sponsored study groups or mentorship circles in the chapter for candidates?

36:05 - Matt Speer

No, so if you're working towards a designation with the appraisal institute, will they'll assign you a mentor? You can choose a mentor and that could be anybody nationwide, you know, people sign up saying that they're willing to be a mentor.

36:25 - Jeff Weiner

Okay, okay, so that's a source for a single mentor, if you want to be on your own right? As opposed to working for someone. Okay. But then if, you know, say that you were instead being part of this large company that you were just on your own and you wanted to start growing your company, but you have to start with the first one. So what would you do when it comes to mentorship?

36:56 - Matt Speer

Well I bring somebody on.

36:59 - Jeff Weiner

Yeah, and that's that's a good point because it is really helpful to have more than one. Well you got to go to, right?

37:06 - Matt Speer

I mean you have to start somewhere right? If you decide you want to grow your business, you know, you start with that first person, it may be a candidate or maybe, you know, a research assistant.

37:15 - Jeff Weiner

So that's another good point. That's the next thing I wanted to go to, watching our time here. So how do you recommend the first kind of tasks for commercial appraisers? Somebody who stated that their intent is to be an appraiser, not a researcher who then discovers will go to that second, but somebody who wants to be you start them as a researcher. Where do you start them as an appraiser? And you give them support to fill in the blanks?

37:46 - Matt Speer

Well, the way we've gone about it is we, you know, if they want to be an appraiser and we have, you know, demand for appraisal services will start them as an appraiser. You know, if they're just out of school or they've never done it before. We generally start them on a salary because with the intent is, we want you to learn how to do it right? And then once you know how to do it, right, then we'll move you to a production split and then you can worry about getting fast. So I want you to focus on doing it the right way first, then we can focus on efficiency.

38:16 - Jeff Weiner

Do you just try to find simple projects or did you have them help you on large regular projects?

38:24 - Avery Parish 

Yeah, So for the first month or so I did a lot of competentry for things that people were already working on.

38:32 - Jeff Weiner

So you were a researcher at first? 

38:34 - Avery Parish 

Yeah, and then did a lot of assignments setup. So did a lot of the initial research and then, you know, piece by piece, you added elements.

38:46 - Matt Speer

But, you were doing the full appraisal though, weren’t you?

38:48 - Avery Parish

I think I didn't do a full appraisal until one month.

38:53 - Jeff Weiner

Four weeks in though. 

38:56 - Avery Parish

Yeah, but it was just every week it seemed like adding a different element, to what I was doing. Building up to actually doing an appraisal report. And those first few assignments, a lot of them were like sales only or restricted appraisal. So a lot less, research and time. 

39:20 - Jeff Weiner

So, not a zoo.

39:23 - Matt Speer

Right. It's not the Wild Wild West. I mean there's a lot of supervision and yeah, talking going on to the whole process.

39:32 - Avery Parish

But it just building slowly, making sure you get each element right, and then building upon it.

39:41

So Elaina in your case, you were saying before that you started with your mom while you were in grad school, so did you start as a researcher?

39:49 - Elaina Grantham

Yes. I was doing a lot of like market analysis man to determine like highest and best use based on those factors. Yeah, it was kind of the same thing. I would do a lot of comp entry and then just over time just slowly baby-stepped into writing things and actually doing more of the like nitty gritty analysis.

40:14 - Jeff Weiner

Right. So that's interesting that that means we didn't plan this, but it turned out really well is that we have both of those paths, right. So you came into it not, you know, you were like a counseling grad student and you came in intentionally being a pleasure. So, my perception is, and I want all three of you to correct me on this, this is wrong. My perception is that four weeks to the first appraisal report is fast.

40:44 - Matt Speer

Yes, you know, we kind of just threw them in the defense, you know, and that's a great way to learn. If you're gonna do the research and figure it out, we're here to answer questions. 

40:59 - Avery Parish

I know for us we have our own sort of template for being able to figure those things out. And so there are well-written instructions which were really helpful.

41:09 - Jeff Weiner

So the reason that I'm asking that question again, it's a perception as I've been talking to people and about is that that's quick. Now, Matt, you and Daniel have done a good job of getting really smart, capable, early career-stage individuals, but there in addition to that, putting people in the deep end and helping them swim as opposed to letting them wage slowly over many, many months or longer, I think really just challenges people to rise to the task with support and so that's an encouragement and like I said, I'm not from the appraisal space, I'm from software space, but boy software engineering, it's the same thing, right?

41:56 - Matt Speer

It is, we have a lot of processes in place to like what Avery was just mentioning, you know, we have a guide that we put together for, for appraisers to look at. It's like, hey, if you're having to do a liquidation value, if you're having to do scenario X, y or Z, you know, here's our typical process for handling that.

42:14 - Jeff Weiner

So you've created that's important point. So you created some job aids to create consistency in the way that the appraisal analysis is done in a variety of different situations. So you have that then I know from talking to all of you is that you take the template ng effort with inside Realquantum very seriously as well. So you've got lots of different templates that are also contributing to the job aid process essentially.

42:44 - Matt Speer

Yeah, all the normal scenarios we would encounter built into our templates and then, you know, the guy that we put together helps, you know, in the learning process, you know, to understand why that the template is like that and then if you've got someone off scenarios.

43:02 -Jeff Weiner

Okay. And that takes a little effort to, but most, you know, all the efforts really in the upfront. Once people start using it and then it's just maintaining and improving, That's not nearly so hard. That's another concept, you know from the e-myth, right? Are you working in or on the business? So if you're working on the business, you're creating systems that allow scale, right, creating good job-aids. It really is. So we highly recommended one of the first blogs that we did the appraiser, think Dan Craig wrote it. It was really all about that because there are an awful lot of sole proprietors out there who you know, they work long hours, they do everything themselves, and which is which that's the e-myth rate is like, oh I'm going to be an entrepreneur and I can do my craft and never have to. You know, I'm going to be successful at having a business in this industry because I was successful at practice. I mean I mean and creating scale and getting other people to help you is crucial.

44:10 - Jeff Weiner

Okay, so let me switch to questions really quick. So Chandra Masks, you asked a question, you've been torn between joining a team or starting on your own little support out there for starting my own brand, and it seems overwhelming. On the other hand, how can I make being sure I'm being paid my worth when I'm looking at job options? What are the salary differences between a regular GA and an MAI? I don't think that we have that data. But one of the specifics that we can say. I don't know how you were the chapter president. Is there MAI data out there about salary differences?

44:49 - Matt Speer

The appraisal institute did come out with something a couple of years ago. I don't remember the numbers but it kind of just it had like a chart of you know how much the average designated a appraiser made versus the average general. I don't have those numbers on hand though but probably the good spot to go to for that. Yeah it should be on their website somewhere and you know it said that a designated member made it quite a bit more on average than general certified appraiser.

45:16 - Jeff Weiner

Which is good because it's a lot of hard work to be an MAI. Okay so good question thank you. Okay So the last opportunity or excuse me, the last question here on our to do list is providing opportunities for career development advancement. And we've been talking a lot about pushing Avery into the deep end. Right Talk to us a little bit more you know Avery and Elaina. So I'll give this question to each of you the navy I'll start with you this time. What would you like to see yourself doing in five years?

45:54 - Avery Parish

In five years. Hopefully, I'm taking the first steps to get my MAI, which means starting my classes toward that whatever that looks like.

46:09 - Jeff Weiner

Okay have you zeroed in on the practice area, either a kind of work or a kind of property class or anything like that yet? 

46:21 - Avery Parish 

Not exactly. I really enjoy industrial and industrial properties. But I also enjoy some of the agricultural, especially just raw land. It varies so much from county to county that it's just, it's a lot of research even though, you know, a lot of people don't think of raw land as you know the commercial praising all the time.

46:50 - Matt Speer

Well it's not just raw land, it's like, is it cropland, is hunting land? Is it pasture land? And you know, you've got to really, you know when you work in these rural markets, you've got to be able to work a wide area and you have to be willing to dive in and do the research for that local knowledge. So you gotta be able to make the phone calls that something is really good at us. You know, calling these local brokers and interviewing them.

47:13 - Jeff Weiner

That's really good. Elaina, how about you?

47:18 - Elaina Grantham

In five years I would hope to be designated, I would think, and kind of just building off of that. I don't think there's any specific property type that I just want to specialize in because part of why I really enjoy appraisal is constantly learning and figuring out new things and just the nuances of everything. So I don't know that I'll ever really want to specialize but famous last words, I mean I could also see myself specializing so we'll see but yeah, I'm just kind of open to the opportunities and see where my strengths are best suited as time goes on.

48:01 - Jeff Weiner

Yeah, I think personally I think that's a good opinion. People are a good outlook when you're really early on in your career sort of deciding where you're going to settle into is kind of a, it's not a good sign you wanna, it's good to say, I don't know yet. Yeah, I'm gonna do it all, it's good. Okay. Favorite thing and most challenging thing about being a new appraiser? I'll start with Avery. 

48:30 - Avery Parish

I think my favorite thing is just the amount of stuff that you like behind the scenes stuff zoning, how different you go from Kansas City to liberal Kansas, you know like just the differences in how seriously they take zoning or just the different rules that you would have never really thought about real estate for something that's already established. 

49:02 - Jeff Weiner

Because where you're located, you get both urban and rural.

49:05 - Avery Parish

Yes. Yes, very much. And then least favorite things. I think the training at times can be very difficult but you just have to keep sight of it, there's an end goal. While all the information is great to learn, it can be overwhelming at times so it's keeping sight of yeah.

49:40 - Jeff Weiner

Elaina, how about you?

49:43 - Elaina Grantham

I think my favorite thing is, like I said, just constantly learning. I think part of why I wanted to go to grad school was just really interested in the pursuit of knowledge and constantly growing. and I think I found my niche in the appraisal because you never know everything, you're always learning. So yeah, so I think that's what keeps people in the profession so long, why you have the average age of 62 or 61 is just keep learning and it keeps you young.

50:18 - Jeff Weiner

I think, I think it does too. And the other thing too that I've observed is that there are a few professions in the world where you can also do it, because of that flexibility, you can switch to part-time, and you can pick the volume of work you want to do. And so I've met brilliant, appraisers at the, at the ai conferences that were well into their seventies And they just enjoy doing it, but they're not working 50 or 60 hours a week, they're working less than that and they're spending weeks and, you know, beautiful places for long trips and that's pretty awesome, you know, that's pretty awesome. And I know attorneys and some accountants and some others can do that kind of thing as well. There are not a lot of people that can do that though, that can sort of glide a path to retirement, so that's probably one of the reasons why the average age is a little bit higher than maybe I think it would be.

51:11 - Matt Speer

Yeah, we've got an appraiser on staff that's in his mid-eighties. Doesn't do it for money, he just does it because he enjoys it.

51:17 - Jeff Weiner

That's really good.

51:18 - Matt Speer

Showed up at the company party in a model T.

51:20 - Jeff Weiner

That's awesome. Is the one he's restored himself? That's really sweet. Really cool.

51:27 - Jeff Weiner

Okay, so Matt Travis has a question for you, How big was the learning curve teaching Elaina and Avery your Realquantum templates versus teaching employees then what you've used in the past? How has this software helped you be more efficient and accurate?

51:42 - Matt Speer

So, so with Elaina and Avery, they, you know, we've been using Real Quantum for a while when they came on board, but we had some trainees at the time when we made the switch and we found that using Realquantum was a much more efficient process for training to appraisers because the way it's set up, it kind of puts blinders on, you know, so you're only focused on one section at a time. You're only focused on what you need to be focusing on at that time and you're not, it's not just a word template where you've got the whole document in front of you, you know, you're kind of doing it step by step and we found that it gets people up to speed a lot faster to where, you know, there, you know, within a matter of months, you know, they're efficient and they're, they're being, they're net positive.

52:28 - Jeff Weiner

So these, these new, new-bees are coming up really fast. Well it's, it follows the mindset of and anybody who's good at, you know, you take a big complicated problem, you chop it up into pieces. I think the point of the app and what you're describing that piece is it's easier to break it into smaller pieces to make it more manageable. It could be any kind of property, you could do anything with it. Okay. That's really good. Okay. And then Matt, why don't we, you know, turn back the time machine go into the past, and think what did you find the most interesting or the most challenging you were getting as, as a new appraiser and on the path to certification.

53:08 - Matt Speer 

You know, for me, I mean it was pretty efficient, but I remember, you know, the, so I started as an intern, my last semester in college and I was just doing data entry, at that time was still the mail, all of our reports. So half my time was spent actually printing and mailing reports. And so we got really busy and, we got behind in, my, my boss said, hey, I need you to do an appraisal and he took me on the inspection and he said, give it your best shot. I'll fix it all when you give it to me. So it just threw me in the deep end. I did full appraisal you know with no oversight, and there was a lot of red ink. Yeah it's so the fact that we've got systems in place now to help people it's you know night and day, you know Realquantum, you know we're complete in addition to Realquantum, you know we're completely cloud-based so we use you know the google suite so everything's online so it makes working easy. For if anyone's got a question on a spreadsheet they're working on, we can get in and you know see their formulas, we can help them through that Anything done in Realquantum we can see what they're doing. You know the great thing about Realquantum is the formulas are hard-coded so there's no formula bus. There's no chance for someone to say like in our old system I'd have to check to see oh they said they made a 5% adjustment. Is the math actually correlated there now if I see there's a 5% adjustment I know it's a 5% adjustment under good?

54:48 - Jeff Weiner

Excellent. Okay so what I wanna do is a wrap-up here and let's see if there are any other questions drop them in the Q&A, or the chat right now. What I'll do is just one of the things in the last five minutes so Realquantum launched its 3.0 version the weekend before last and for those of you that our customers you would have seen all of our correspondence about what was coming but I wanted to take a minute to for those of you that have not yet To just give you an update about what kinds of things that we have in the app now. We call it 3.0 because it is the by far the biggest update that we've had to the product and there's a tremendous amount of new capabilities that we've added just to name a few. So if you've seen the product in the past or you may have heard something about it and what it's all about. Right. We know it's a software as a service product 100% on the web. Everybody can collaborate and talk about that a little bit mad as people on your team like like Avery and Elaina who are learning. In addition to that, what we did in this last release, we've done a bunch of screen design updates to make it easier to get more information on the page to focus on the areas that are most important for where you're working and doing that analysis. We did a big upgrade to upgrade to the report formatting, especially within the executive summary session section with lots of new data visualization capabilities. We added a new demographic section. We added a new tax, real estate, and tax comps section was new for analyzing tax comps for a variety of different property types. There's new zoning and fields and analysis capabilities. And now zoning can be an independent section.

56:45 - Jeff Weiner

There's new certification language to reflect some updates to USPAP, there are new adjustment categories, and with fairly complicated market conditions adjustment using compound annual growth with multiple inflection points, which it was interesting to test. That was really it was fun. And the income approach has half a dozen new things that are happening, you know, from new income and expense categories and subcategories that are intelligent based on the type of property class, new expense, comparable discussion of expenses section, a new revenue transaction within the subject history to analyze revenue from year to year, new direct capitalization sensitivity analysis feature that wasn't there before and now for multi-family and other a few similar related properties. The ability to analyze nonrevenue units and incorporate those into your proforma.

57:52 - Jeff Weiner 

And then in the cost approach section, we did a revamp of the whole cost approach. So it's easier to support a bunch of improvements in a complicated property and with new multipliers. And then we built out an entirely new insurable replacement cost capability that is of course driven by the cost approach but it can be described anywhere in the report. So by itself, that was probably, you know, six releases based on what we've done in the past in terms of complexity and it was all in the weekend before Valentine's Day. So we all planned our Valentine's Day dinners outside of release anyway. I wanted to give everybody a quick update on that because there's a tremendous amount of new information.

58:36 - Jeff Weiner

So if we were not currently a Realquantum customer and you would like to learn a little bit more, please feel free to reach out to us on the Realquantum.com website. There is a get a demo link that is impossible to miss. So do that there. Send a note to me at jeff@realquantum.com or give us a call. So thank you to everybody. Thank you, Matt, and you're awesome team Avery and Elaina, thank you all for joining us today. I really appreciate it. Hope everybody has a good day. Thank you.