When you own a business, your equipment can be a large part of your overall assets. Unfortunately, many business owners fail to get a commercial property valuation before it's needed, making the process much more complicated when working with a tax agency over a prior year's donation, an insurance company after a fire or with an interested buyer who wants a serious bargain. An equipment valuation can help protect your interests in a wide range of situations. Here's a quick look at the benefits you'll receive when you get one:
What benefits can you get from a commercial property valuation?
Determining what your machinery is worth can be an open-ended question. To a machinery dealer, it's worth whatever it needs to be valued at to make the sale happen. If you need to be convinced that the machinery is worthless to get you to upgrade, they may undervalue the machinery. If they think you need a solid trade-in value to justify the investment in new machinery, they may overvalue the equipment to make the sale. Because they have a solid interest in your equipment and the actions you take with it, the value they provide for your machinery isn't necessarily accurate.
What about the values you see in used equipment being sold online or in classified ads? Unfortunately, that's not necessarily an accurate value either. The owner may be waiting for the perfect buyer and have their machinery priced higher than it would otherwise sell for, or they may be looking for a fast sale and have lowballed the selling price. If the equipment is in poor condition, it may sell for a lower amount, or if it's in great condition, it may have a higher price.
But there's more than just a simple value for your equipment when you have a valuation performed. A certified equipment appraiser's job is looking at machinery. They spend all day looking at the machinery that they're evaluating, so they can often tell you a great deal about the equipment's condition. When they specialize in a specific industry's equipment, they can know the failure points for many pieces of machinery. They can tell when a piece of equipment has been well maintained and when the machinery has been neglected or abused.
Unlike tax assessors, who look at a wide range of property, a valuation specialist can quickly and accurately determine the differences in value between a diesel and gasoline engine in the same work truck, a bandsaw mill that has a wide range of potential accessories or attachments or the difference in the size of a metal press. They can help ensure that the value you receive is accurate to your exact machinery. Because they are an independent third party, the value that they calculate will not be influenced by any outside factors.
By getting a commercial property valuation on your business equipment, your company can benefit from that appraisal in many ways. However, it's important to remember that the valuation is only as good as the appraiser who performs it. If you use a simple equipment to estimate your equipment values, there's a good chance that appraisal will not hold up to strong scrutiny. Make a solid investment in your equipment values by making sure that your equipment valuation specialist is certified with a national appraisal organization.