tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3193121391730683972024-03-15T18:09:20.094-07:00International Appraiser: Objective valuation advice on international real estateVernon Martin has physically appraised/valued properties on every continent except Antarctica and provides independent, unsponsored investment and valuation advice.Vernon Martin, MSRE, CFEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02054820435980122674noreply@blogger.comBlogger166125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319312139173068397.post-8688473966241277412024-02-18T10:53:00.000-08:002024-03-13T10:03:58.175-07:00The Effect of Chinese Government Policy on the Failures of High-rise Residential Towers in Los Angeles and Other World CitiesGraffiti-clad Oceanwide Towers in LAIn March 2019 I reported on the failure of three 40-story residential towers being built in downtown Los Angeles. (https://www.internationalappraiser.com/search?q=oceanwide)
Lendlease, the Australian general contractor, had rocked the LA real estate world by announcing that it had halted construction on Oceanwide Plaza over unpaid bills. The interior remains toVernon Martin, MSRE, CFEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02054820435980122674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319312139173068397.post-77341131977589684772023-11-25T11:57:00.000-08:002023-11-25T11:57:11.155-08:00Another land appraisal in Costa Rica Here was a property that measured 4 square miles of ocean view
land, of which there are plenty in Costa Rica due to the sloping topography. It
is not uncommon for properties this size to be marketed to developers, but they
are not necessarily publicly marketed, making comparable properties, particularly closed saled, hard to
find.
This particular property, at its closest point to the oceanVernon Martin, MSRE, CFEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02054820435980122674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319312139173068397.post-87229426298370113222023-09-13T14:13:00.002-07:002023-09-13T22:37:02.131-07:00Appraisal of a Residence in CubaIn the almost 14 years of writing this blog, my practice has shifted from large international projects financed by big lenders to smaller properties involved in estates and divorces. It’s often the case that the bereaved family or the spouse does not even know what Dad’s property or the other spouse’s property in the Old Country looks like, but they need a valuation, and don’t want to spend the Vernon Martin, MSRE, CFEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02054820435980122674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319312139173068397.post-71409773601876738042023-01-20T18:18:00.006-08:002023-01-21T14:04:28.635-08:00German Property Portfolio Valuation Four story commercial property in downtown Hannover The actual valuation assignment was to appraise a one-half ownership interest in four rental properties in the cities of Hannover and Kiel in Germany. These were multifamily, mixed use and one retail property. These interests were inherited by a U.S. citizen, but the other half owner is German. To value a partial interest, Vernon Martin, MSRE, CFEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02054820435980122674noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319312139173068397.post-9506963119565346782022-12-11T21:32:00.025-08:002023-01-14T10:18:53.952-08:00"Today is the Day, Club Wyndham!" Why Timeshares, Fractional Vacation Home Ownerships and Condotels are a Bad Deal Condotel unit in WaikikiBy now there are millions of disappointed investors in these types of properties. The most important investment lesson learned is that these buildings are deteriorating assets that have ever increasing maintenance needs.When timeshares and other forms of fractional vacation ownership became popular in the 1970s, the U.S. economy Vernon Martin, MSRE, CFEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02054820435980122674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319312139173068397.post-43709003607375018452021-12-24T13:26:00.004-08:002021-12-24T13:32:44.504-08:00Appraisal in PanamaLooks like rice cultivation
This was a litigation situation in Panama in which 3 different Panamanian appraisers had already appraised a group of agrarian properties which were near each other, with the highest appraised value more than 5 times the lowest appraised value. I was asked to make an independent appraisal.
Two appraisals had been done for the respective litigants, and one had Vernon Martin, MSRE, CFEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02054820435980122674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319312139173068397.post-25162192470379609142021-11-10T14:04:00.009-08:002021-11-10T16:06:54.504-08:00The International Appraiser completes expert witness testimony in a divorce case in Costa Rica A recent marital dissolution trial had me establishing value for proposed luxury lodges near the beach in Puntarenas, Costa Rica, in the Santa Teresa area where famous rich people have also been recently seen vacationing or buying houses, such as Tom and Giselle Brady, Mel Gibson and Matt Damon and family. These types of properties consist of several luxury villas on site renting at $400 orVernon Martin, MSRE, CFEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02054820435980122674noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319312139173068397.post-62975321226706120752021-10-21T20:48:00.005-07:002021-10-22T09:54:15.127-07:00Appraisal of Coastal Land on a Pacific IslandNotice the proximity of the cliffs and the calm, reef-protected waters. Some of my appraisal assignments call for “second opinions”. This one called for a third opinion, as appraisal reports had been respectively submitted by two MAIs who resided on the island. The estimates of value were more than $50 million apart. Who was right? Who was wrong? A survey measuring more than 250 acres Vernon Martin, MSRE, CFEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02054820435980122674noreply@blogger.com0Federated States of Micronesia7.425554 150.550812-20.362241896663861 115.39456468220902 35.213349896663864 -174.292940682209tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319312139173068397.post-86739484763232273392021-06-03T20:25:00.008-07:002021-06-03T20:39:02.894-07:00Where do U.S. retirees really emigrate to? It’s not what international real estate purveyors would have you believe.
Harrison Hot Springs, British Columbia. Canada is the preferred destination of U.S. retirees.
While I have addressed International Living and Real Estate Trend Alert before, there are many other vendors of foreign real estate fantasies and get-rich-quick-schemes with their hyperbole about Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador, Vietnam, etc. Every year, though, the U.S. Social Security Vernon Martin, MSRE, CFEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02054820435980122674noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319312139173068397.post-81473912007239237562021-02-23T20:05:00.008-08:002021-02-23T20:14:16.754-08:00Another appraisal in Seoul, Gangnam-style The subject is a 14-story office tower in Seoul, built in 2006,
with a height of 182 feet. Gross building area is 70,310 square feet
(6532.81 square meters), covering most of the site.This was yet another valuation assignment done for inheritance purposes as wealthy Korean immigrants to the U.S. pass on valuable real estate assets to their children. This particular building is situated in Vernon Martin, MSRE, CFEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02054820435980122674noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319312139173068397.post-53152323936719053462020-03-28T09:02:00.002-07:002021-11-10T14:15:25.586-08:00A Recent Appraisal in Costa Rica's Zona Maritima
Most of the real estate in Costa Rica consists of "freehold" or "fee simple" interests in real property, or in other words, properties with titles, estimated to cover about 85% of the country.
The remaining 15% is leasehold land known as “concession properties”. Concession properties are considered desirable because they are at the beachfront, where titled land is not available.
AllVernon Martin, MSRE, CFEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02054820435980122674noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319312139173068397.post-56724595997402654052019-11-20T12:20:00.003-08:002022-01-27T11:36:21.364-08:00Another Misleading Rental Property Offering From Global Investments Incorporated Through Mondinion (Global Investments)
My name is on many “real-estate-for-suckers” spam
lists, and some it comes out of Britain from Mondinion, Global Investments Incorporated,
PropertyO, NuBricks or whatever name they change to again. This is a group of
British real estate salesmen internationally hawking rental properties in some
of America’s most troubled urban residential markets, such as Detroit and St.
Louis. The central Vernon Martin, MSRE, CFEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02054820435980122674noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319312139173068397.post-48915978168898761302019-07-12T15:01:00.000-07:002019-08-23T19:54:28.925-07:00Tropical American Tree Farms Update, 2019: A Guest Post
One of the new homes being built on former TATF properties
I encourage guest bloggers offering topical content on issues that concern my readers. I have received this guest post written by an anonymous source who lives in the vicinity of some of the many teak farms owned by Tropical American Tree Farms. I have received more e-mails and comments from Vernon Martin, MSRE, CFEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02054820435980122674noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319312139173068397.post-77874472956087862812019-06-18T17:12:00.000-07:002019-06-18T17:13:58.486-07:00Appraisal in Quebec: A Lesson on the difference between “Aggregate retail value” and “Market value”
The properties consisted of scattered land parcels of almost 2000 acres zoned for recreation and tourism, including a golf course and a lodge, in a rural part of Quebec in the vicinity of the Ottawa and the Coulonge Rivers. The rivers and lakes provide boating, fishing, and waterfalls that attract a moderate number of tourists, and second homes are sometimes built or bought by urban Vernon Martin, MSRE, CFEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02054820435980122674noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319312139173068397.post-48939420500773737842019-03-19T00:12:00.000-07:002019-04-26T14:54:31.618-07:00Financial Trouble at Oceanwide Plaza and the Effect of Chinese Capital Controls on Certain North American Real Estate Markets
Oceanwide Plaza, March 18, 2019
Some Hong Kong appraisal firms
subcontract North American appraisal work to me. The work is for financial
reporting purposes, as the property owners are publicly traded firms, and I
have gotten used to the writing reports in compliance with the Hong Kong Institute
of Surveyors.
On January 28 I was asked to bid
on an appraisal of Oceanwide Plaza being Vernon Martin, MSRE, CFEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02054820435980122674noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319312139173068397.post-39325645398581707192018-12-20T14:54:00.001-08:002019-08-23T19:55:41.078-07:00Revisiting Jinbao Place and Beijing's Luxury Retail District
Jinbao Street is a premier luxury shopping street in Beijing, like Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. In its two-block stretch there are three 4 or 5-star hotels and Bentley, Ferrari, Maserati and Mercedes dealerships. In my return this time, I found an Aston-Martin dealership in the lobby of my hotel, The Regent.
Jinbao (translated as “golden treasure”) Street is the best-known destination Vernon Martin, MSRE, CFEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02054820435980122674noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319312139173068397.post-48875237248346727652018-11-14T16:36:00.000-08:002019-08-23T19:56:55.279-07:00Update on the Eminent Domain Case in Seoul
https://www.internationalappraiser.com/2017/05/another-appraisal-in-seoul-eminent.htmlMy previous post on this matter spoke of a naturalized U.S. citizen who was having her home seized by the Seoul
Municipal Government for a private development project. She was one of a few
holdouts who insisted that she was not being properly compensated for her home
in downtown Seoul. Both the Vernon Martin, MSRE, CFEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02054820435980122674noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319312139173068397.post-47611401482886942722018-10-21T15:13:00.002-07:002020-12-27T22:46:36.512-08:00Why I Don’t Appraise in Antarctica
Esperanza, the only actual town in Antarctica
In the by-line of my blog I
mention that I have appraised real estate on every continent but Antarctica. I
have not written off that possibility, but doubt that there will be a situation
which would call for a real estate appraisal.
For one thing, there is no civil
authority or indigenous people in Antarctica, and thus noVernon Martin, MSRE, CFEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02054820435980122674noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319312139173068397.post-45624887511634107532018-09-01T13:55:00.000-07:002019-04-11T13:05:20.530-07:00An Industrial Building Appraisal Done to both USPAP and RICS Red Book Standards
Some British investors wanted to
buy a local factory in Torrance, a city of 150,000 residents in Los Angeles
County. This was my second request this year to produce an appraisal report
which met RICS Global Standards, also known as the “Red Book”. The RICS is the
Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors in London, providing guidance to the
British Commonwealth real estate Vernon Martin, MSRE, CFEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02054820435980122674noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319312139173068397.post-53798627126229721562018-08-27T13:31:00.000-07:002019-04-11T13:07:08.292-07:00More Appraisals in British Columbia: How Helpful is USPAP in Preventing Mortgage Fraud?
Harrison Hot Springs, BC
An applicant for a loan from my client was about to bid on a court-ordered sale of an assortment of foreclosed British Columbian land properties scattered all around the province. The foreclosing lender had been a victim of mortgage fraud, feebly assisted by a supposedly reputable Canadian appraisal firm.
The previous owner had manipulated the Vernon Martin, MSRE, CFEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02054820435980122674noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319312139173068397.post-92063134130744405402018-07-24T11:55:00.000-07:002019-04-11T13:08:11.101-07:00Another EB-5 Regional Center Failure: Imperial Regional Center
Heavy presence of food and beverage operations. The developer is also a restaurant supplier.
The goal of the EB-5 regional
center was to develop a 78-acre commercial center (“Imperial Center”), in the
unincorporated town of Heber, in Imperial County, California, containing over
one million square feet of building area, mostly focused on retail, wholesale
and food and beverage Vernon Martin, MSRE, CFEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02054820435980122674noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319312139173068397.post-51654544779894248512018-06-21T16:04:00.006-07:002021-03-10T20:43:20.954-08:00Another EB-5 Scandal in California's San Gabriel Valley
Is this the City of Hope?
An attorney retained me at the request of skeptical investors in this EB-5 project sponsored by the America FX Regional Center, LLC, an EB-5 regional center approved by USCIS in 2016. The goal of the offering was to develop a 318-room FX Boutix hotel across from the City of Hope, which is a 217-bed cancer hospital in the middle-class Los Angeles suburb of Vernon Martin, MSRE, CFEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02054820435980122674noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319312139173068397.post-59294076992341526262018-05-17T17:57:00.000-07:002018-06-20T09:50:06.203-07:00Timeshares, Fractional Vacation Home Ownerships and Condotels are a Bad Deal
Fairway Forest
By now there are millions of disappointed investors in these types of properties. The most important lesson learned is that buildings are a deteriorating asset.
When these property types were originally conceived in the 1980s, the U.S. economy was beset by a high rate of inflation. Real estate was known to provide protection from inflation, because property values Vernon Martin, MSRE, CFEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02054820435980122674noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319312139173068397.post-89463344998158330622018-02-28T17:35:00.005-08:002019-04-11T13:20:43.414-07:00Making Borrower Background Checks Part of the Appraisal Process
In two previous posts I suggested appraisers sometimes do “background checks” on loan applicants, which is contrary to everything taught to me as an appraiser and even seems blasphemous. After all, the same real estate should be worth the same, no matter who is buying or refinancing it, and the standard definitions of market value assumeVernon Martin, MSRE, CFEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02054820435980122674noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319312139173068397.post-16356363332091954262017-11-06T23:16:00.001-08:002019-09-03T19:17:40.209-07:00A Reassessment of Real Estate Guru Ronan McMahon: Real Math vs. "Ronan Math"
Almost 5 years ago I published a post that was critical of International Living magazine and their anointed real estate guru, Ronan McMahon, for the bad investment advice being presented. http://www.internationalappraiser.com/2013/02/ronan-mcmahons-real-estate-trend-alert.html . I also pointed out a conflict of interest, as IL must serve its advertisers, and certain problematic real estate Vernon Martin, MSRE, CFEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02054820435980122674noreply@blogger.com183