Submitted to General Law Committee

February 5, 2009

By
Tim Calnen
Vice President of Government Affairs

The Connecticut Association of REALTORS® favors strong standards for the conduct of real estate appraisals. Real estate appraisals are opinions of value that must fully comply with the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice issued by the Appraisal Foundation pursuant to federal law (Title XI of FIRREA). A separate license, distinct from a real estate broker's license, is required to engage in this business.

Our main concern with SB 303 is that real estate brokers be allowed to continue doing "brokers price opinions" also known as "comparative market analyses". Both of these terms are often referred to by their abbreviations - - BPO's and CMA's. In any case they are essentially abbreviated indicators of the probable sales price of a particular property based on a real estate broker's or salesperson's analysis of sales of similar recently sold properties. And where permitted elsewhere in the country, the fee for such analyses are often 1/16^th of the cost of a full-fledged appraisal.