Seminar Offerings
This page lists presentation topics you will find nowhere else. They are designed to add important valuation capabilities to your practice that are profitable for you and critical for your clients. I developed them to arm valuers with the latest technological advances, as well as eliminate major blind spots that exist between the real property and business valuation disciplines. These seminars will show you how to approach many types of formerly difficult valuations with confidence and ease. They are not just informative, they’re transformative. – Dennis Webb.
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Our purpose
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These offerings are the culmination of the work of Dennis A. Webb, ASA, MAI, FRICS, an engineer who has dedicated the past 30 years to multidisciplinary valuation practice. He is designated in both real property appraisal and business valuation, and has re-engineered conventional approaches to specific valuation issues by adapting the strengths of each discipline. The result is guidance that can be adopted by both real estate appraisers and business valuers to leverage Mr. Webb’s experience without the burden of attaining long experience in the affected valuation areas.
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Seminar delivery
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These topics are taught by Mr. Webb worldwide, and are available for delivery through Zoom or in person. They are typically sponsored by professional associations, although they can be delivered directly as well. Most are 1-2 hours, although they can be combined. #1 is normally all day. Shorter topics on professional judgment and artificial intelligence and other professional questions are also available.
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Check out the brief overviews below. We will be happy to send seminar abstracts, with learning objectives and timed outlines, for your consideration; you may reach out for a tailored consultation here.
Seminar Abstracts
1 - Valuing market failure
Being ready for the next recession – and many other tight spots with limited or no transactions
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Real estate appraisers first determine the highest & best use of the subject property, and only then select comparable transactions, yield rates or other market indications of value. This works just fine as long as market data for properties with the same highest & best use can be found. But what if they cannot? What if market activity has stopped for a time (no one will sell into the depressed market)? What if the concluded use is “hold for future development” but no transactions can be found with that same objective?
Value is impaired because the market effectively prevents such development. At least for a time. Activity will most likely return to normal, but definitely not at the date of value. Now what?
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This 1-2 hour webinar uses a residential development case study. The market had seen consistent, very active development and then nothing. At all. There were no transactions with the same “hold for future development” use. But the valuation was not difficult at all. This seminar explores techniques for valuing such “market impairments” based on historic price trends, predicted future prices, the delay involved, and risk over the period. This seminar offers ways the appraiser can deal with impairments when there are few, if any, other options.
2 - Using the income approach for...everything
The powerful income approach solves the most difficult valuation problems
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This seminar takes a fresh look at the familiar income approach, and how you can use it as your go-to approach for nearly every property type and circumstance. The range of applications will surprise you. The income approach is truly a universal valuation language that works across property types, markets and disciplines.
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This 2-hour webinar emphasizes the fundamental nature of risk and returns that underlie all real estate investment. We will see how reliance on opaque sales transactions has created some of the greatest disasters in valuation, and continue to do so. By contrast, the income approach is transparent by its nature, allowing the valuer to tell a compelling, persuasive story. This webinar is designed to help valuers not only solve problems, but prove their worth to their clients.
3 - The real story behind shared real estate investing
Are real estate tokens a new thing, or an old thing with a new paintjob?
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Real estate investing saved by the Blockchain, right? Fundamentals are always present, regardless of the promoter’s cover stories, and no more so than for the latest thing: Tokenized interests in real estate trading on the blockchain. Is this really the latest and greatest way to own real estate? Or are we just being entertained by pitches for interests that we have understood for a long time?
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This 1-2 hour webinar penetrates the stories and finds fundamental principles of property ownership, management and minority limitations that valuers can use to help their clients understand the real risks that come with tokenized ownership. We also take a close look at transactional data for fractional interests generally, and consider whether token markets will provide useful data that will help valuers in the future.
4 - Finding the missing specific company risk
Valuation fundamentals don’t change just because the company holds real estate
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Real estate entity management challenges can present risks to a noncontrolling partner that are not explicitly considered by the real estate appraiser. Not a problem unless it’s the company holding the real estate that is being valued (either by the real estate appraiser or a business valuer). The business valuation notion of specific company risk—created by the ownership structure—is very often left out, even though it is routinely considered an important element of operating company valuation.
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Finding and understanding such risk is a truly multidisciplinary task, which (as usual) requires being able to ask the right questions. In this case, what are the particular present and expected future property and asset management challenges and responsibilities, and how does current management match up to what is generally done in the market for this property type? The answers can be quite revealing, and important for the partners and the valuation alike.
5 - Becoming proficient in fractional interest valuation
A journey to high-performing real estate holding company valuation
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This all-day live seminar is about real breakthroughs in fractional interest valuation, as well as fundamental keys to successful multidisciplinary valuation assignments. It offers the appraisers who have a foundation in the income approach everything they need to understand, communicate and execute fractional interest valuations, as well as gain their client’s trust and emphasize their objective judgment, thereby proving their worth against the coming threats of AI and AVMs. The keys and resources you need to accomplish this are available to you in an eye-opening 7-hour seminar.
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The seminar begins with the fundamental realities of multidisciplinary valuation, including the threats of AI and AVMs affecting the valuation professions. It then presents the story of shared ownership; the why and how of partnership formation and its lifecycle. A case study of income approach application follows, and then we introduce valuation tools that make otherwise complex valuations easy.
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The 4-hour Zoom version covers the same material as the 7-hour live version, but is compacted for online delivery. It can be followed up with more in-depth online offerings that concern detailed examination of valuation methodology.
6 - Valuation methodologies for fractions; 1.0 and 2.0
Re-engineered methodology based on the income approach emerges as 2.0
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We have all been using 1.0 technology, which was designed for BV and adapted for real estate entities. Although 1.0 has evolved quite a bit in the past 25 years, its methods have remained largely disconnected from the real estate asset which has greatly reduced our credibility.
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This 2-hour webinar is about the upgrade from 1.0 to 2.0. This upgrade allows you to address the facts of your case in a complete way and also take care of circumstances that have been almost impossible. If you have been valuing fractional interests, you are familiar with the working parts of 1.0, and will certainly be familiar with the income approach workings of 2.0.
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This webinar presents the methodologies that comprise 1.0 and shows how and where they have been incorporated into or replaced by the methodologies of 2.0. It then goes through a case study demonstrating the principal elements of 2.0. Fractional interest valuation technology is now complete.
7 - Fractional interest valuation workshop
Working your cases using the PrimusPVX© teaching tool
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This seminar is about next steps for students who have completed “Becoming Proficient in Fractional Interest Valuation” and are strongly considering adding fractional interests in real estate to their practice. It offers experience and wisdom gained over decades of practice for the students’ instant use. Recognizing how the client’s organization structures are interpreted (and simplified!) for the valuation, exploring ways to apply principles from the prerequisite seminar to live cases, and persuasive multidisciplinary report writing are all packed into this enlightening seminar.
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This 4-hour workshop begins with an exploration of a variety of client property ownership structures and how the appraiser can (easily) determine scope of work and set up the assignment. Next, we demonstrate the basics of PVX operation, and present student cases in a hands-on experience of the valuation process using PVX as a learning tool.
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The case study portion takes advantage of the PrimusPVX valuation platform, a teaching tool that leads the appraiser on a systematic journey through asking the right questions and applying judgment to specific cases. Students are asked to obtain a two week (free) trial subscription to PrimusPVX and begin a case based on their selected real estate appraisal. If the case wasn’t originally about a fractional interest, then make up facts for the sake of the exercise. We will fill in any missing parts in class. The goal is to make the cases personal and specific to the local market.
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* The application is self-contained, with onsite resources that include document checklists, databases, special situation guidance and an e-version of Valuing Fractional Interests in Real Estate 2.0 linked to specific questions and concepts. Appraiser-users have access to specific formulas, internal values and can make additional adjustments—it is transparent and educational.
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The class finishes with detailed recommendations for multidisciplinary report writing. First-class expertise is quickly available, relegating the need for long experience to the past. Students are now ready to jump into the world of fractional interest valuation.
8 - Separating real estate from other business assets; a case study
A successful case demonstrates multidisciplinary teamwork
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This 2-hour webinar begins with an overview of the kinds of fundamental differences that make interdisciplinary understanding a challenge, using examples from real property and business valuation combinations. It then highlights circumstances, tools and processes that support practical solutions. Finally, a case study details the process for separating the real property and other assets that comprise a going concern.
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This case study was taken from an actual eminent domain proceeding that determined lost rent attributable to short-term interruption of an asset-heavy business. It demonstrates a successful method of separating real estate from other business assets that can be applied reliably and broadly when transactional data is not available to do the job.
9 - The real business valuer’s guide to real estate
What the valuer needs to know about the real estate—and how to get it
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Real estate investment company valuations are a special, multidisciplinary case that regularly generates blind spots, robbing the valuation of its credibility. This eye-opening and valuation-saving journey takes us through the very different worldviews of the real estate appraiser and the business valuer.
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You will understand how multidisciplinary valuation really works, and recognize that real estate appraisers and business valuers live in entirely different realities. Learn how to find what you need, whether it is in the appraisal or not, and increase your confidence and the credibility of your real estate-related valuations.
