Editorial
Front Page - Friday, June 25, 2010
Experienced appraiser loves her work for better or worse
Erica Tuggle
Bonnie Millard says she enjoys the work she does as an appraiser for Chattanooga Appraisals and Inspections, but there are also difficult days when appraising foreclosures or entering the homes of those down on their luck. She began her appraisal work 30 years ago when she was fresh out of high school, and has been loving it ever since.
- Erica Tuggle
Bonnie Millard has spent her entire working career as an appraiser, and even though it is sometimes a sad business to be in, she says she loves what she does.
Millard grew up in Wisconsin, and when her father was transferred to Chattanooga she began work right away for a local appraiser while attending UTC. Thirty years later she is still in the appraisal business, this time as part of a husband and wife team: Chattanooga Appraisals and Inspections.
Millard, a licensed appraiser since 1989, works in residential appraisals to give the current market value of properties using tried and true methods.
“You go out to the house and measure it, go in and see all the good details and try to see where in the market value that property would belong,” she says. “I don’t use any fancy gadgets, but do it the old fashion way by getting in the bushes with the tape measure on the house.”
Millard, 50 this year, says she is proud of her age and proud of the name she has made for her company during her years. From her beginnings when there were virtually no women appraisers, to now where she works to maintain the respect of all she encounters, she goes at it full-force.
“I think I got the respect I wanted from the very beginning by being up front and friendly and treating everyone how they wanted to be treated so they would respect the job I was doing,” she says. “Some people get mad at the appraisal opinions I make because their house is a personal thing to them, but to me I like everything and try to just find the value that is correct and fair.”
She says even if she likes everything about a home, she must be objective and in the end has to make the decision on whether buyers at that particular time are going to like certain things. She admits this can be difficult with the large number of trends in home decorating that are swimming around, but she says, her years of experience have given her the know-how to make the calls.
“If you can show me a reason why my opinion is not correct, then that is one thing. I am showing you how I arrived at the value and I do this for a living and am a professional at it,” she says. “I’m the objective one and I don’t have a dog in the fight.”
Being an appraiser takes experience and working up from the bottom, she says. She thinks it was easier for her in the business because she grew up outside of Chattanooga and wasn’t as emotionally attached to places or contacts in town
Millard says appraisals are important for everyone in the process from Realtors, lenders and the buyers and sellers.
“Appraisals are important for the mortgage process because if a bank is going to lend money they need to know what their collateral is worth. Realtors need to know so they can list properly and not overlist. There shouldn’t be that much flexibility for its current market value, but appraisers see different value in different things as well.”
During an appraisal inspection, she says she will look at a particular piece of real estate and say what is has and why it has a certain value based on the physical interior and exterior appearances. The difference is that a home inspector, like her husband, will tell the age of all the important items of the home and if they are working properly, but assigning no value to anything.
“We look at the quality of elements, functionality of items, all the materials and quantity, landscaping and all that contributes to the property,” she says.
In the end, the final call usually comes down to location.
“1,000 feet of property in Brainerd is not worth the same value as 1,000 feet of property in East Brainerd, because the two belong to two different markets that will bring different values,” she says.
Most appraisals she does are at the back end of the process when all the other components have come together, she says. The bulk of her business these days is refinance and resale properties, and she says unfortunately, several are divorce cases and foreclosures.
“It’s hard these days with any business because of the market falling apart and not being able to put our name out there because of all the regulations on finding an unbiased appraiser,” she says. “You really just want to have a clean name out there and let people know you are impartial.”
Although, it is evident Millard loves the work she does, her passion at helping people is strained with current conditions.
“[Being an appraiser] is fun because it gives you a different outlook everyday, but sometimes you see the sadness in it. I think people just get so overwhelmed that they don’t know what to do,” she says.
Continuing her compassionate hopes, she says, if she ever won the lottery she would use the money to continue to help the people she sees struggling by setting up a credit card counseling business.
Another thing Millard says she loves about the job is the free schedule she has where she could do things with her two kids when they were growing up and now that they are grown she can fill her schedule with a variety of outdoor activities.
Not only is she running a full-time business but she plays softball, is in her church choir and hand bells, plays tennis, cuts her own grass, plays golf on occasion and paints and maintains her rental properties (she has eight). She’s living proof that the busiest people have the most time. As Millard would say, take it for what it’s worth.
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