Corson Residential Appraisers, Inc.

06/16/2023

Check me out on Tim Markland's real estate podcast. We covered a lot of ground related to valuation.

In this episode, Tim sits down with appraiser extraordinaire, Dominic Corson of Corson Residential Appraisers. Tim asks the questions that everyone wants to ...

07/01/2022

30 years ago today Corson Residential Appraisers, Inc. was born. Thanks to all my clients, lenders, attorneys, real estate agents, and homeowners, for staying with me throughout the years. Special thanks go to my wife, Karen, for supporting me as I followed my dream of owning my own business. Many people comment to me that it must be fun to go into peoples homes. After 13,000 appraisals, I can tell you that houses are not nearly interesting as the people who live in them or who are involved in the transaction. The best part of being in this business (38 years) is all of the relationships I've have built and maintained. Fortunately, I started very young so I've got another 15-20 years left in me. Thanks for everything and hope to see you soon.

09/14/2021

If any of my real estate friends or business owner friends would like to sponsor a mile marker or a water station for the Susquehanna River Running Festival happening on 9/25/21, please let me know now. I still have a few spots left. The mile marker is $300 and the water station is $500. All net proceeds go to the Al Cesky Scholarship Fund, Inc. Thanks!

04/16/2020

One of the most important driving forces for a real estate market is employment or a lack thereof. The chart below reflects the unemployment insurance claims filed for Harford and Cecil Counties over the past several weeks. I am providing a link to the MD Dept of Labor for state statistics which indicate nearly 300,000 unemployment insurance claims filed within the past month. It is all too new to feel the full effect of this trend, but we will undoubtedly feel it in the weeks, months and possibly years to come.

https://www.dllr.state.md.us/employment/uicounty.shtml

03/23/2020

Lenders now have the green light to use exterior-only inspections for appraisals. It's always better to inspect the interior, but under these unprecedented times, this is a good work-around for everyone. I could sense during inspections last week that homeowners were a little tentative about me coming into their home. Frankly, I wasn't too thrilled about being there either. I was able to convince a few of my local lending clients last week to use exterior-only appraisals. It helps keep the appraiser and the homeowner safe and healthy. Hopefully, the major lending institutions will follow suit, at least in the short term.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency announced this morning that it is instructing Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to use alternative home appraisal methods until May 17.

03/02/2020

Today I submitted written testimony to the Ways and Means Committee in Annapolis on behalf of the Maryland Association of Appraisers to stop HB 1628 which would create a new sales tax on services. Thanks to Councilman Chad Shrodes and hundreds of others who let the powers that be know where we stand. I've never used this forum for political purposes before, but this bill does not just affect a small group of people in a particular industry; it affects every citizen. Once the camel gets its nose under this tent, it's game over. You definitely need to contact your state delegate or senator immediately.

02/26/2020

You have probably heard about the service tax proposed by Maryland General Assembly. I have provided a link for your convenience. I never get political in this forum so I won't. You probably already know what I think. I think you should read the tax proposal so you can see what these masterminds have in store for all of us.

01/06/2020

Tax assessment figures were recently released by the Maryland Department of Assessment and Taxation indicating a healthy increase in assessed values. This may lead some to wonder if their assessments are too high. Although each case is different, it is safe to say the SDAT assessed values are typically under real market value. A recent search of single unit dwellings sold in Bel Air within the past 30 days found 43 sales. Of those sales, only 5 sold for less than their assessed values. Of those 5, 2 were bank-owned properties and 1 was an estate sale. Only two of 43 sales (4.3 percent) were less than the assessed value.
A similar search was done for the northern Harford County area which found 12 sales with 3 with assessments greater than their sale price. Of those three, 1 was a bank-owned property and the other 2 were estate sales.
So the take away here is that assessments, on average, increased during the past year, but they likely remain below actual market value. I would caution that this is simply a general survey of the data and that each case is different. Over 30 plus years of appraising, I have only performed a handful of appraisals for clients appealing their taxes whose assessments were egregiously too high.
If you believe you are being over-assessed and would like to appeal, this link from Maryland SDAT is a good guide. It has been my experience that if you can provide good comparable sales data to support your opinion, the assessment could be reduced.

While we strive to provide the most accurate assessments possible, Customers sometimes feel that the Department’s estimate of their property value is incorrect. The assessment appeal process allows property owners the opportunity to dispute the value determined by the Department. Property values r...

11/25/2019

This is an interesting Wall Street Journal article about the future of our business. Independent of interest rates, economic trends, and government policies, we can't avoid the inevitable fact that boomers will be moving into assisted living facilities or dying in the next ten years and their houses will have to be sold.

The U.S. is at the beginning of a tidal wave of homes hitting the market on the scale of the housing bubble in the mid-2000s. What happens when so many homes post ‘For Sale’ signs around the same time?

11/21/2019

Here is a link to the proposed Accessory Dwelling Unit law to be voted on by the Harford County Council.

http://hcgweb01.harfordcountymd.gov:50067/Bill/BillDetail/19-029

10/21/2019

Lesson In Productivity: Going through some old stuff this weekend, I came upon this little gem: the Kodak DC40 digital camera. In 1997, the retail price was around $1,000. It sounds like a lot until you think about the cost of film photography. In 1996, I spent approximately $2,800 in film and developing. Moreover, I probably spent at least 80 hours per year going back and forth to the photo place to get the film developed. If that wasn't enough, I had to sort all the photos and then use double stick tape to attach the photos onto paper for my appraisal. To top it all off, I had to make copies and then mail, or sometimes hand-deliver, the appraisal report to my client. All tolled, film photography easily cost me over $5,000 per year in hard costs and opportunity costs.
Like many of you, I am a one person business. There are only so many hours in a day I can work. In order to make more money, I need to raise my fees or become more productive. In a competitive market, it is difficult to raise fees. The best alternative, is to become more productive. It's really important to use technology or other methods to maximize your time. Embracing new ways of doing things and struggling through a learning curve can be painful, but it usually pays off.

08/05/2019

Back in the 90's I wrote a real estate column for the Harford Business Ledger in favor of a flat tax. I argued that people would support the elimination of the mortgage interest deduction if their overall taxes were less. Moreover, I argued that the MID artificially raised prices and actually kept buyers out of the market because houses were less affordable. NAR was freaking out over this long held middle class "entitlement" and spent millions of lobbying dollars to hold on to it. Well, this New York Times article makes it clear, the market has responded the way I had predicted. People should buy real estate for its own economic merits, specifically long term equity growth. The more people are free to make their own economically rational choices instead of government picking and choosing winners and losers, the better off we'll be.

President Trump’s tax cuts encouraged homeowners to stop deducting mortgage interest on their taxes, and there is no sign the change has brought down home prices.