Business Administration: Real Estate Appraisal and Assessment Major

Have you ever wondered who decides what a family home, a quarter section of farmland or a main street shop is really worth? Lakeland’s Business Administration: Real Estate Appraisal and Assessment Major trains you to answer that question in a two-year diploma taught face to face at the Lloydminster campus, right on the Alberta and Saskatchewan border.

Your first year lays the business groundwork shared by every Lakeland business major, from AC 130 Accounting I and AC 230 Accounting II to MA101 Business Mathematics, EC 111 Microeconomics, EC 211 Macroeconomics and BA 120 Organizational Behaviour. The second year turns to property itself. You study assessment principles, construction estimating, farmland evaluation, property analysis and property law, then learn computerized mass appraisal, the method assessors use to value thousands of properties in a municipality at once.

Between first and second year you can take an optional 14-to-16-week paid work placement, testing your valuation skills with a real employer and meeting people in the assessment field. Graduates of this major also receive a certificate in Real Property Assessment from the University of British Columbia. Lakeland’s appraisal courses earn exemptions toward the Accredited Appraiser Canadian Institute designation, municipal assessor designations in Alberta and Saskatchewan, the Canadian National Association of Real Estate Appraisers, Canadian Residential Appraiser, and the IAAO Residential Evaluation Specialist and Certified Assessment Evaluator credentials. For a degree later, block transfers to NAIT and the University of Lethbridge, plus Athabasca University degrees offered on campus, give the diploma a clear next step.

Lakeland appraisal and assessment graduates work as data collectors, assessment technicians, property assessors, assessment valuators, policy writers and tax appeal agents, in municipal assessment departments, government agencies, appraisal firms and non-profit organizations. This major suits you if you enjoy numbers but also want to walk through buildings, read land descriptions and calmly explain a property value to an owner who disagrees with it.