Mosley Appraisal Services in business for 30 years

Published 10:30 am Friday, March 20, 2015

For as long as people have bought and sold houses, those people have needed the services of an appraiser. With more than 30 years, there are few better to call than William Mosley of Mosley Appraisal Services.

“I’m a licensed real estate broker, but I’ve been an appraiser since 1983,” Mosley said. “I’ve been doing this for 30-plus years.”

Mosley does the majority of his appraisals on residential real estate, but he also does land and lake lots and the occasional small commercial property. He started in appraisals because he was a broker, and a bank called him and asked if he would do an appraisal, he said. He agreed, and since then, although still a licensed broker, he has gotten a majority of his business from appraisals.

“Ninety percent (of my business) comes from banks, lenders or appraisal management companies,” Mosley said. “The other 10 percent is from attorneys and individuals, such as due to a divorce or someone just wants to know what his property is worth.”

Mosley said the appraisal business is mostly done by comparisons. Just like a person, when buying a used car, will shop around to find what a car has and what he or she wants and gets the best price possible, Mosley looks at what other similar houses have recently sold for.

“When I go out to appraise a home, it’s mostly comparison. I compare property, how big it is, what condition it is and its location,” Mosley said. “I try to find things that have sold in the last six months that are similar in condition and size, and then I just make adjustments for significant differences.”

Adjustments come from the size of the property, whether it is in better or worse condition and the number of bedrooms and bathrooms in the home. Mosley said he uses the base price of the home, or the price a home was sold for, and compare it to the home he is appraising. He adds a certain amount to the price for more bedrooms or bathrooms and deducts if there are fewer.

Mosley said there are three ways to arrive at a price of a home he’s appraising, and as an appraiser, he has to use all three. He takes into consideration the cost — what it costs to build a certain type of room onto a home — as well as income. For example, if a duplex generates $1,000 a month on rent, there is a value based on the rent income. The third factor to consider is what the home would cost to build currently as opposed to what it cost when it was originally constructed.

Mosley said houses are easiest to appraise if there are very similar houses close by. He said if he was asked to appraise a home in the Carrington Woods area, he would have little trouble finding three to four houses that are very similar to it. He can easily figure out the condition of the other homes when they were sold and compare it to the condition of the house he is appraising.

One thing Mosley does not take into consideration when appraising a home is damage in the home.

“If I see damage, I note the damage I see,” Mosley said. “Then the lender requires the owner to hire a contractor to estimate the cost of the repairs.”

Mosley said most houses in Milledgeville average between $100,000 to $200,000, however, he has appraised houses upward of $1 million.

“The highest was probably $1 million in Milledgeville that ever sold, by the lake,” Mosley said. “That was back in 2006. There are places on Lake Oconee that have passed $3 million. But just like those, I do a comparison to other homes.”

Mosley said he recently appraised a home at just $12,000, which he called a fixer-upper. Many of the lower priced “fixer-uppers” are bought, repaired and then appraised again and sold for a higher price in what is referred to as flipping a home.

Mosley said several years ago there were many houses being flipped, but that has slowed down in recent years.

After an appraisal is completed, Mosley gives the information to the person who hired him.

“I’m strictly confidential in what I do. They order it, I do the appraisal, turn it in, and they are the only ones who I talk about it to,” Mosley said. “They are the only ones who can know what I said.”

Banks use Mosley’s services to give a loan based on a home while real estate agents call him to price a home for sale. Attorneys may use his services when a divorcing couple is splitting the equity of their home and for estate planning.

Many times a real estate agency will be a little upset if Mosley prices the home lower than what’s desired, but he says he’s neither on the side of the buyer nor seller of a home.

“Appraisers provide a good service to lenders, and also to buyers and sellers. As an appraiser, I don’t tell people what to pay for it, but mostly what the market is,” Mosley said. “I keep people from paying too much for a house. We (appraisers) just estimate the value — we’re not on the side of a buyer or seller.”

Mosley Appraisal Services is open from 8:15 a.m. to 6:15 p.m. Monday through Friday. As an independent appraiser, he is often in and out of the office, so people are encouraged to call or email instead of dropping by for an office visit. Mosley can be reached at 478-453-3528 or willray@windstream.net.