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Relocation Appraisals
A relocation appraisal answers a different question from every other appraisal we do, and the difference catches people out.
Anticipated sales price, not market value
A standard appraisal reports market value: what a property should bring in a competitive, open-market sale with no unusual pressure. A relocation appraisal reports the anticipated sales price — the price the property is likely to actually achieve within a defined marketing period, typically 120 days, given how it competes with what is on the market right now.
That means a relocation appraisal leans on evidence a standard report treats as secondary: active competing listings, pending sales, days on market, and the direction the local market is moving. Closed sales tell you where the market was. A relocation assignment has to say where it is going, inside a specific window, and be right enough that an employer can rely on it.
The ERC form
Relocation work is reported on the ERC Residential Appraisal Report, the industry's accepted format, not on the standard Fannie Mae form. It asks for things the URAR does not: a competitive listing analysis, a marketing-time forecast, and a distinct opinion of anticipated sales price at a specified marketing period.
We have completed 45 assignments on the ERC form. It is a specialist product, and most residential appraisers have never filled one in.
Who orders them
Relocation management companies, corporate mobility departments, and employers running a guaranteed-buyout or buyer-value-option programme. Occasionally an employee being relocated, where the employer's programme permits it.
If you are the employee: the report is not a valuation of what your home is worth to you. It is a forecast of what it will sell for inside the marketing window your employer's programme defines, and it will usually sit below a conventional market-value opinion for that reason. That is the product working as designed, not the appraiser being pessimistic.
Our experience
Appraising South Florida since 1992, 34,000+ appraisals in Palm Beach, Martin, St. Lucie and Broward counties. A relocation forecast is only as good as the appraiser's read of local absorption, which is a thing you learn from volume in one market rather than from a formula. Residential only.
How the assignment runs
The relocation company issues the assignment with programme instructions — marketing period, forecasting requirements, forms. We inspect, then build three analyses the standard form never asks for: closed sales, competing active listings a buyer would tour instead of this home, and pendings that reveal where the market is moving. The forecast reconciles all three into an anticipated sales price at the programme's marketing period, on the ERC form. Where the programme uses two appraisers, our number has to stand independently and it does.
Why so few appraisers do this well
Forecasting is a different muscle from valuing. A market-value appraisal looks backward at closed evidence; an ERC assignment must call the direction and speed of a specific neighbourhood's absorption — and be checkable, because the employer finds out what the house actually sold for. 45 completed ERC-form assignments is a small number that means a great deal: most residential appraisers have never filled the form in.
Call 561-853-2129 or use the contact form.
Questions we hear about this work
How is a relocation appraisal different from a regular appraisal?
It reports anticipated sales price inside a defined marketing period — typically 120 days — rather than market value, and it weighs active listings and pending sales far more heavily. It is reported on the ERC form.
Who typically orders relocation appraisals?
Relocation management companies and corporate mobility programmes, usually two appraisers per property with a variance requirement between them.
Why is the relocation value lower than my Zestimate?
It is a forecast of what the home will actually fetch inside a fixed window, not an open-ended market value. A time constraint has a price, and the report quantifies it.
How fast can you complete an ERC assignment?
Relocation programmes run on corporate timelines; tell us the deadline and we build to it. The competitive-listing analysis is the long pole, not the inspection.