Appraisals in Today's Commercial Real Estate Market …

Thinking out loud here but it’s got to be difficult appraising property in a real estate market with so few recent sales to use as comparables.

A discussion on appraised value came up recently with clients that are trying to get a property under contract.  They need a loan commitment which will require the property to appraise for the contracted price (unless they want to come out of pocket for the difference).

#1 – With so few sales, how is an appraiser going to effectively come up with a property value?

#2 – So how accurate / reliable is the appraiser’s work going to be?