Business Personal Property Valuation
Business personal property (BPP) can be challenging to value because of the limited quantity of data available and primary reliance upon the sales comparison approach. Relatively speaking, a voluminous quantity of data is available when valuing real estate as opposed to valuing business personal property. Many real estate appraisals consider three approaches to value: cost approach, sales comparison approach and the income approach. By contrast, most business personal property appraisals depend primarily upon the sales comparison approach. While it is possible to develop a reasonable estimate of the market value for business personal property, the values tend to be more subjective than the value of real estate. The sales comparison approach depends upon principles of substitution and supply and demand. Purchasers of business personal property will seek alternatives and choose the alternative most beneficial for them considering cost, quantity and quality. For real estate, comparable sales data is available with in-depth descriptions of the real estate, including quantity and quality. For business personal property, is more difficult to obtain accurate information regarding the quantity and quality of property involved in a sale. For example, assume the XYZ Company recently closed its Chicago operation and sold the furniture, phone system, network servers, personal computers and related items for an office with 30,000 square feet of space and 120 employees. The sales data includes the quantity of desks, chairs, file cabinets, personal computers, network computers, etc. However, it does not contain precise information regarding the condition and age of each of these items. Real estate is more homogeneous and easier to describe versus the sale of a quantity of business personal property. Real estate appraisers often gain insight from preparing each of the three approaches to value for real estate assignments. However, personal property appraisers typically focused primarily upon the sales comparison approach. They do not have the benefit of contrasting the value conclusion via the sales comparison approach with values via the cost approach and income approach. It is important to define the asset being valued. Referring back to our example of the XYZ Company which closed its office, is the assignment to ascribe a value to each item as though it is going to be sold individually or is it to assign a value to the aggregate collection of furniture, computers and equipment? An alternate approach would be to define a value based upon selling subsets of the whole. For example, the furniture to one purchaser and the computers and phone system to a second purchaser. The definition of value also substantially affects the value conclusion. Market value would typically be defined as the value assuming both the buyer and seller are knowledgeable regarding the property, neither the buyer nor seller is under distress to buy or sell and an adequate amount of time is allowed to market the property. A liquidation value would also assume that both buyer and seller are knowledgeable regarding the assets. However, it would assume a very brief period of time to sell the property. Value in use describes the value of the assets to the current owner. It is not indicative of what a third party would likely pay to purchase the assets. In addition to performing an appraisal to estimate the market value of business personal property, other techniques sometimes considered for valuing business personal property are IRS depreciation schedules and appraisal district depreciation schedules. These may or may not result in a value conclusion that is similar to market value. However, it is the writer’s experience that they typically produce a value in excess of true market value. To obtain a quote or further information for a business personal property valuation, contact us at 713-686-9955 The appraisal division of O’Connor & Associates is a national provider of commercial property real estate appraisal services including cost segregation studies, highest and best use analysis, due diligence, gift tax valuation, commercial real estate appraisal, lease abstraction, insurance valuations, business personal property valuations, business purchase price allocations, single-family litigation support and business valuations.Patrick C. O'Connor has been president of O'Connor & Associates since 1983 and is a recipient of the prestigious MAI designation from the Appraisal Institute. He is also a registered senior property tax consultant in the state of Texas and has written numerous articles in state and national publications on reducing property taxes. He continues to set the standard in direction and quality of our appraisal products, adding services ranging from business valuations and business appraisals to cost segregation analysis for income tax reduction. Patrick C. O'Connor <a href = "http://www.poconnor.com">www.poconnor.com</a>
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The Home Warranty Doctor Is In!
Would you go to your real estate agent for advice on the stock market? Probably not. While your real estate agent does help you with a different kind of investment ? your home ? that doesn?t make them automatically qualified to give you advice on the latest IPO from Wall Street. When you want good information you go to the authority. You go to the expert on the topic! Want investment information? See an investment specialist. Got a cough and fever? See a doctor. Want to buy a car? Go to the dealership. But when you?re looking around at many choices, which is the right one to choose? Which one, among your many choices, is the authority on the information you want? In the home warranty industry it?s hard to tell. You type in ?home warranty? in a search engine and several companies come up. Who do you choose? Which one will tell you the information you need to make good decisions? and which ones will try to sell you something you don?t need? Here are a few ways to help you discover which home warranty company is the authority on the home warranty industry. Search for home warranty websites and compare them. What do you notice? Many home warranty companies try to ?straddle the fence? and cater to their paying customers AND their service providers AND realtors all at the same time. When push comes to shove, how much of their time are they going to spend on you? (Hint: if only one-third of their website is spent on you there?s a good chance that only one-third of their attention is focused on you). How can a home warranty provider be an authority in the industry when they?re so busy trying to be all things to all people? Most home warranty companies tell you what kind of policy you should have. They?ll tell you that you need all your ceiling fans covered? even if you don?t own any ceiling fans. And they?ll make you pay for them. How can a home warranty provider be an authority in the industry when you?re the expert on your home? but they?re telling you what should be covered?!? How many home warranty companies provide you with unbiased industry analysis in the form of reports, RSS feeds, and whitepapers to help guide you through the decision-making process? A site that does that is an authoritative site. Met Home Warranty provides homeowners, home buyers, and home sellers with more than just home warranties. Through their authoritative site they provide industry information with current technology, an innovative Design-A-Plan system that caters to your specific needs, and a downloadable PDF whitepaper to help you understand everything you need to know about a home warranty. So for a new home, go to a real estate agent. For a home warranty, go the industry-leading authority: Met Home Warranty. The home warranty doctor is in! Aaron Hoos writes for Met Home Warranty. Met Home Warranty is an industry-leading authority on home warranties for home owners, home buyers, and home sellers. Their website, <a href="http://www.methomewarranty.com">www.methomewarranty.com</a>, provides information, resources, and a whitepaper.
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Shipping Container Houses:
Shipping Container Homes: The Economical Choice Shipping container homes make sense from so many standpoints. Most importantly, it’s a cost-saving solution. A container home in St. Paul, Minnesota at 1800 sq. ft. cost $133 per sq. ft. to build. A container home in Redondo Beach, California cost $180 per sq. ft. to build. A cost of $150 per sq. ft. for a container home is not uncommon. These prices are for homes that have many custom design features at tract home prices. One of the first shipping container homes in America was a house built in a blighted North Charleston, SC neighborhood in 2004 with the help of North Charleston and U.S. Housing and Urban Development funds. This project was seen as a prototype for renovating poorer neighborhoods. If container homes can be an economical way of building in the U.S., think of the potential for shipping container homes in developing countries. The non-profit, Global Peace Containers, is building schools and other structures out of shipping containers in Jamaica. The organization’s mission is: “1. To provide the organization and process to respond properly to situations where there are clearly established needs for low-cost, emergency, transitional or permanent housing and community buildings. 2. To instruct and empower the people to undertake the conversion of international shipping containers to meet those needs, and in so doing, develop their own capacities to help themselves in times of emergency and improve their economic condition.” (See GlobalPeaceContainers at Firmitas.org.) Global Peace Containers finds that these buildings can be put up in a matter of days with unskilled and semi-skilled labor, using equipment readily available in developing countries, and with recycled materials such as used shipping containers and scrap sheet metal. In Jamaica, like other developing countries, a building as large as a school made of containers costs around $12,000. Several architects have developed easily transportable emergency housing out of shipping containers. These temporary shipping container homes can be deployed quickly and in large numbers to house refugees and victims of natural disasters. See the information at Firmitas.org about FutureShack. Whether the rationale for building an economical home is to provide temporary housing to refugees and the homeless, to build affordable housing for people who could not otherwise afford a home, allow a homeowner to upgrade to designer quality at tract home costs, or to help middle class homeowners afford a home in an expensive area shipping container homes are an economical answer.Mike Sanders has written for Shipping-Container-Housing.com since 2004.
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