What knowledge and skills should competent valuers have?

Property valuations are vital to a healthy property market and a stable economy, forming the basis of performance analysis, financing decisions, transactional or development advice, dispute resolution, taxation and various statutory applications.

Growing demand

Valuation as a profession and valuers as professionals thus have a crucial role to play in the modern economy. The Indian built environment sector grows side-by-side with its flourishing economy, and the need for competent valuers will be greater than ever before in such a climate. In fact, in order to streamline the growth in the real estate, construction, and infrastructure industries, policy regulations such as REITs, Companies Act will soon ensure that only competent valuers are involved in projects andto a much greater extent than before.

A profession with many facets

However, to tap into this market, valuation professionals need to have expertise in a number of areas. Valuation is a soft science in which professionals need to make judgments based on different assumptions. Due to the complex nature of the role, there are often large risks associated with this task. In order to navigate the risks and the complexity efficiently, valuers require specialized skills that they can apply in their day-to-day professional duties.

Often, valuation professionals are from a technical background (engineers) or a finance background (accountants) and have moved laterally to the valuation field. But we know that, for professionals to be competent, they require specialized skills. Luckily, both technical and financial skills can be learnt—whatever the skills gap, it needs to be analyzed and addressed methodically.

Valuation professionals as market analysts

A good way to think about valuation professionals is as market analysts. They need to keep abreast of trends and fluctuations in the property market, the reasons for these changes, and the effect that they will have on property values. For examples, the value of a property could undergo a significant change within as short a time as 6 months due to external influences—this is crucial information that a valuation professional must be able to analyze and make use of.

This means that the scope of valuation work transcends to other disciplines like law, economics, finance and accountancy, town planning, and environmental science—all of these are interwoven into the work of a valuer. In order to get chartered status, which is a sign of exceptional expertise in a given field, valuation professionals need to be able to demonstrate deep knowledge of property/asset inspection, measurement of land and property, and valuation processes that can help clients make informed decisions. Valuation professionals can also choose to specialize, in fields ranging from contaminated land and building pathology to investment and property management, leasing, and sustainability. (Often, however, these specializations are not a choice—merely a job requirement.)

Keep your skills relevant

Valuation is an exciting field for someone who enjoys complexity and using a breadth of knowledge to help make crucial decisions. In order to stay relevant in a rapidly changing marketplace, however, valuers need to ensure that their skills are up-to-date. Properly structured education can help achieve this goal for valuation professionals—helping them not only become even better at their jobs, but making sure that their skills will always be in demand.

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