Appraiser Makes Himself at Home in the Fields

Home and business appraisers can busy themselves measuring garages and pacing off porches if they want. Frank Virtue prefers to stroll orange orchards in the sunshine.

Virtue, 60, one of the state’s 300 or so rural appraisers, does have an office. He runs Frank Virtue & Associates out of the Farm Bureau building on McGrath Street in Ventura.

But mostly, he travels California, estimating the value of family farms, million-dollar lemon groves, even scout camps.

In his 38-year career he has seen small farmers struggle to keep their property, local citrus growers merge with larger companies and giant agricultural conglomerates in turn swallow them up. Whatever the scenario, Virtue aims to get the owners a fair shake on the price of their land.

“You have to consider the types of soil, the water supply, the type of crops grown and the yield,” he said. “And whether there are other uses for the property.”

Virtue also helps the U.S. Forest Service “clean up” its boundaries, where public and private land often mingle in checkerboard patterns.

“I do appraisals so they can exchange some forest land for private ownership and fill in the blanks,” he said.

Virtue was recently voted president of the California Chapter of the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers. As president, he said he keeps the group’s 300 members abreast of the constantly changing regulations that govern their work.

“One concern I think most ‘ag’ people have is the California and federal water situation,” he said. “[Officials] are holding hearings across the state about the state water projects. We want to watch how it’s going to affect people in the San Joaquin Valley.”

Restrictions on access to state water projects could be the biggest problem facing his clients over the next decade, Virtue said. Water rights will become an ever-greater factor in the price of farmland.

“Agriculture is always down toward the bottom of the list of usage when it comes to water,” he said. “I don’t know what the outcome is going to be on all this.”

He said appraisers also need to keep up on new local laws, like Ventura County’s Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources restrictions.

“With SOAR, you’re limited pretty much by how you appraise the property,” he said. “You have to appraise it for agricultural use only. You can’t look into the future.”

His term as president will last one year. After that the Ventura resident will work with the organization in other positions.