An appraisal is a valuation signed by a licensed appraiser who carries professional responsibility for it. A broker opinion of value is an analyst's estimate of likely trading price, produced faster, from fewer inputs, with no licence behind it. We hold no appraisal licence, and we call our output an opinion of value, never a valuation or an appraisal.
This page describes how the two kinds of work differ in practice, and how we work. It is not legal advice and it does not tell you what any rule requires of you. If a lender, a court or a tax authority is the audience for the number, ask that audience what they accept before you commission anything.
The plain distinction
An appraisal is produced by a licensed appraiser who inspects, documents and signs. The signature is the point: the appraiser stands behind the figure professionally, and institutions that need someone to stand behind a number are buying that, not only the arithmetic.
A broker opinion of value is an estimate of likely trading price prepared by someone who works in the market — a broker, an analyst, or in our case a system driven by an analyst's brief. It is faster, it draws on fewer verified inputs, it usually involves no interior inspection, and nobody licensed signs it. It is a decision aid, not a document of record.
That difference in what the two things are for is the difference that matters. An appraisal exists so a third party can rely on it. An opinion of value exists so you can decide what to do next — whether to bid, whether to walk, whether to spend money on the fuller work.
We hold no appraisal licence, and we say so in writing
We do not hold an appraisal licence, and we do not call our own output a valuation, an appraisal or an appraised value. Our product is named Value Opinion for that reason. This is our own standing rule, set 17.08.2026 and reconfirmed 23.08.2026, and it applies to every line we write to a client (source: company_products, as of 2026-09-14).
If you ever see the words "appraisal" or "appraised value" attached to something we produced, that is our error and we want to be told.
When you need an appraisal instead of us
Stated against our own interest, because sending you the wrong way costs more than the work is worth:
- A lender, court, tax authority or insurer is the reader. If someone else has to rely on the number and hold a person responsible for it, you need a licensed, signed report. We cannot be that.
- The subject's condition or interior is the main question. Our work does not include a physical inspection. The comparable set can be excellent and the number still wrong if the building's condition drives its price.
- The property is in a place where we have no register data. We register 42 US states; nine are not covered at all: Alabama, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Dakota and South Carolina (source: company_geography, as of 2026-09-14). In Texas, sale prices are not disclosed at all, and no vendor we use fills that gap.
- The property is outside our data footprint entirely. Outside the United States we have no government register behind us in the United Arab Emirates, Russia and the CIS, Saudi Arabia, Hungary, Portugal, Australia, Turkey, Italy, Canada, Romania, India, Thailand, Poland, Israel, Cyprus, Argentina, Brazil, Greece or South Africa, and no production record of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Czechia, Norway, Denmark, Ireland, Finland or Sweden answering. In those places we work from open sources and the documents you give us. A local appraiser knows things we do not.
- Local rules of tenure, tax or measurement decide the answer. We do not model the rules of any jurisdiction, anywhere, on any run — not in the United States and not abroad (source: company_geography, as of 2026-09-14). Our analysis is about market evidence, not about how your jurisdiction defines floor area, taxes a transfer or treats a lease.
One more thing worth saying plainly: our automatic coverage warning is wired into one product only, and it has fired 25 times across 12,542 runs this year (source: company_geography, as of 2026-09-14). Do not wait for the system to tell you your property is outside our reach. Ask us before you commission the work, and we will check by hand.
What a confidence score is telling you to do
Every opinion of value we produce carries a confidence score, and the score is the instruction, not decoration.
Take a real example. A broker opinion of value on a Tampa industrial warehouse scored its own confidence at 45 out of 100 and graded its risk High (source: f50ce112, as of 2026-09-11). It rested on 2 sale comparables, an unresolved zoning code conflict the run refused to paper over, and missing occupancy and condition data. It then named what would move the number: a zoning letter, and either a land comparable or a cost estimate.
A 95-out-of-100 headline on that evidence would have been the dishonest version, and the reviewer said so in exactly those words.
What a reader should do with a 45: treat the figure as an opening position, not a conclusion. Use it to decide whether the deal is worth the next expense. Do not carry it to a lender or a counterparty as a value. Go and buy the two missing things it named — they are cheap relative to the deal, and they are the fastest route to a number you can act on.
What a reader should do with a high score: act on it, and still read the comparable set.
When the comparable set is the weak part
A comparable-based opinion is only as good as the transactions behind it. Our own working rule is that below three comparable sales, a point value becomes a range (source: company_products, as of 2026-09-14). The Tampa example sat under that threshold, which is why its confidence was clamped rather than its range narrowed.
So when you read one of our opinions, read the comparable set before the number. Ask how many sales, how recent, how alike in size, use and submarket. If the answer is thin, the correct response is not to discount the number by instinct — it is to ask what evidence would thicken it, and to decide whether that evidence is worth buying. That is the question we try to answer for you explicitly in every report.
Where our data is deepest, the comparable set is strongest: official transaction records in 17 US states, county and state parcel data, zoning in 21 cities, and a full cadastral sweep in Florida (source: company_geography, as of 2026-09-14). Where it is shallow, we say so in the report rather than smoothing it over.