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About Me

Donald J. Moore

I was born in central Illinois and raised in Chicagoland, namely Crystal Lake, Illinois.  I moved to Madison, Wisconsin in 1980 and enrolled at the University of Wisconsin after a couple of years establishing residency.  I graduated from the Real Estate Program at the UW in 1986.  My major professor was Dr. James A. Graaskamp, a noted pioneer in real estate appraisal and urban land economics.  I am proud to say I have continued with his legacy - "People Over Profits"

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I began appraising real estate in 1985, worked as a commercial appraiser for some local Milwaukee appraisal firms and started my own company, Moore Appraisal Inc., in 1991. I received my certification as a General Appraiser in 1991 as well and my Wisconsin real estate brokerage license in 1993.  I received the MAI designation from the Appraisal Institute in 1995.  

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I have always tried to keep my appraisal ethics (the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice - USPAP) front and center in all the real estate services I provide.  This means I charge fees for my service.  Commissions are to be avoided. I am a fiduciary at all times.  Listing agents being paid on commission can be fiduciaries, but they cannot be appraisers.  Buyer agents paid on commission can be neither fiduciaries nor appraisers.  I am always both an appraiser and a fiduciary.

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My History of Fee-Based Services

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My first foray into fee-based services was "The Moore for Buyers System" a buyer agency program based on an hourly fee, taken from the buyer agent compensation offered in MLS and the remainder rebated back to the client as an incentive.  Because of procuring cause I had to be in front of the client the entire way to get access to the commission.  It was convoluted and confusing particularly when competition says "Why are you paying a fee? I work for FREE!"  This was from 1996.

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My second attempt at fee-based real estate service was The On-Line Appraisal (OLA.COM) where I would appraise the seller's house for a fee and then post the appraisal as a web site that buyers could access to get all the great detail included like floor plans, surveys, photographs, comparable sales, even video tours.  I tried to get appraisers to expand into this market with a tie to the Appraisal Institute but we could not break through.  This was from 1999.

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Third time was Houses.com.  I partnered with a gentleman from California to promote on-line appraisals and fee-based brokerage.  Although we had some success locally we were never able to gain traction because we always had to offer a commission to buyer agents although we didn't charge commissions. It was confusing and the mandatory offer of compensation made it very difficult since there was always a commission hanging over our fee-based services. We operated from 2001 to about 2006.

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And finally there was Custom Fit Realty.  Another fee-based service that was doing pretty well.  I had a Sunday morning call-in show on 620 WTMJ talking about all kinds of real estate issues.  Unfortunately this was right before the crash of 2008 and we could never recover.

 

After this company dissolved I stopped offering real estate brokerage services altogether.  Full time appraisal was fine since that business learned from the crash that you can't have people with conflicts of interests involved with the appraisal.  So it was better for awhile.   

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As this history shows, I've been working at this for nearly 30 years.  Finally perseverance pays off with the Antitrust Settlement.

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I am Happy to Speak with You
About How My Real Estate Services
Can Help You

Call me at 262-789-1122

email at donaldjmoore@gmail.com

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