Appraise property values
Most of the output can be produced by software today.
Software can pull the data, run the comparison and write up what it found. The accuracy depends almost entirely on whether it is wired into the real system of record rather than a stale copy, which is the problem the tools and auth layer exists to solve.
| How automatable | Mostly automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Analysis and evaluation work |
| Jobs that do it | 6 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Builders, Tools and auth |
| O*NET activity | Judging the Qualities of Objects, Services, or People (4.A.2.a.1) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 6 occupations that perform it.
- Investigate and assess damage to property and create or review property damage estimates.
- Calculate the value of property based on comparisons to recent sales, estimated cost to reproduce, and anticipated property income streams.
- Compute final estimation of property values, taking into account such factors as depreciation, replacement costs, value comparisons of similar properties, and income potential.
- Appraise and inventory real and personal property for estate planning.
- Compare a property with similar properties that have recently sold to determine its competitive market price.
- Update appraisals when property has been improved, damaged, or has otherwise changed.
- Inspect new construction and major improvements to existing structures to determine values.
- Appraise property values, assessing income potential when relevant.
- Visit properties to assess them before showing them to clients.
- Inspect properties, considering factors such as market value, location, and building or replacement costs to determine appraisal value.
- Appraise properties to determine loan values.
- Evaluate land and neighborhoods where properties are situated, considering locations and trends or impending changes that could influence future values.
- Locate and appraise undeveloped areas for building sites, based on evaluations of area market conditions.
- Check building codes and zoning bylaws to determine any effects on the properties being appraised.
- Interview persons familiar with properties and immediate surroundings, such as contractors, home owners, and realtors, to obtain pertinent information.
- Examine the type and location of nearby services, such as shopping centers, schools, parks, and other neighborhood features, to evaluate their impact on property values.
- Determine taxability of properties, using methods such as field inspection, structural measurement, calculation, sales analysis, market trend studies, and income and expense analysis.
What we would actually use
One recommendation rather than a shortlist, because a shortlist is just your problem handed back. This is what we would buy for analysis and evaluation work, and what it costs.
Start in the assistant with an export of the real data, because the accuracy problem here is a stale copy rather than a weak model. Make, at $9 a month, is the cheapest way to put the pull on a schedule once the analysis is worth repeating.
Chosen for the cheapest thing that does the job, not the best funded. Nothing on this site is sponsored, and the full landscape is there when you want to disagree with us.
The rest of the category
Context, not alternatives to weigh up. We name the layer rather than promise a named product does your specific task.
Matched from the kind of work, not from vendor marketing. Check any of them can reach the system your records actually live in — that connection, not the model, is where these projects stall.
How people actually do it
No workflow names this activity yet, but these automate the same kind of work, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Who does this work
6 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Evaluate condition of financial assets, property, or other resources”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
| Activity | Jobs |
|---|---|
| Assess financial status of clients | 8 |
| Evaluate condition of properties | 5 |
Method. The activity, its taxonomy placement and the occupations that perform it come straight from the public-domain O*NET 30.3 database. The automatability band is ours: we map each of O*NET’s 41 generalized work activities to how much of its output current software can produce, assuming a person still reviews and owns the result. It is a coarse three-way judgment on purpose. A precise-looking percentage here would be invented.