Ronald Moody and Farley Grainger are the owners of Broom, Moody, Johnson & Grainger Real Estate Appraisers and Consultants.
WHAT DOES THE FIRM DO?
The firm provides professional commercial and residential real estate appraisal and consultation services as well as feasibility studies and market analyses.
WHAT DOES MOODY DO?
“I focus on the litigation work,” said Moody, CEO of the company. “Including condemnation-type of approvals where many times court testimony is involved. Once a condemning authority decides that it is going to take a property, the property owner has the right to have their own appraisal made. The condemning authority will have their appraisal made and the owner will have their appraisal made and then they try to settle it. I do work for the property owner sometimes and other times I do work for the condemning authority, it just depends on who calls me.”
WHAT DOES GRAINGER DO?
“I manage the commercial banking business and the government business for the company,” said Grainger, president of the company. “It entails doing a variety of appraisals from vacant land all the way up to downtown office buildings. It just depends on what the bank’s needs are for lending money to those structures or what the government needs are when condemning a building.” He does work for the City of Jacksonville, JEA and the Jacksonville Transportation Authority.
HOW LONG HAS THE
PARTNERSHIP BEEN TOGETHER?
Twenty years. It was originally set up with four partners, but two of them have since retired.
“We made a decision a long time ago to set up a large appraisal company,” said Moody. “We are the largest in town. A lot of the shops that you will see in town are really small-type operators. We really wanted to provide a full-service appraisal work that included residential, commercial, court work, estate work and divorce cases.”
AS PARTNERS, HOW DO
YOU SHARE RESPONSIBILITIES?
“It’s kind of like a marriage, we each take different responsibilities and we try to do the things that we are good at,” said Moody. “Farley does a lot of the management and the organizational type work and decisions. I head up the appraisal and research department.”
WHERE DO THEY
DO THEIR APPRAISALS?
Duval, Clay, St. Johns, Nassau and Baker counties. They also do work all over Florida and in southeast Georgia.
WHAT IS YOUR INVOLVEMENT IN DOWNTOWN PROJECTS?
“We were involved in doing the work for the sports complex for the City of Jacksonville and we do a lot of private client work,” said Grainger. “We’ve been involved in several different projects downtown. We’ve appraised Independent Square, The Jacksonville Landing and the Bank of America building.”
“We worked on some land that was taken for the purpose of the Federal Courthouse and are working on some of the land for the library site,” said Moody.
WHAT RESULTS
FROM AN APPRAISAL?
“It really depends on the purpose that the client looking for,” said Grainger. “A bank in most cases is looking for a market evaluation of what the building would be worth on the open market. A corporation may be trying to decide what to do with a structure, whether to sell it or lease it depending on the real estate value.”
WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO SOMEONE LOOKING FOR AN APPRAISER?
“Use a good appraiser,” said Moody. “Don’t be penny wise and a pound foolish. Many people try to cut corners and they really don’t realize how valuable their property could be. We have have always prized ourselves in doing a very good job of verifying the data and turning out a good appraisal work.”
WHAT DID MOODY DO BEFORE THIS COMPANY?
“I worked for an appraiser while I was in college and then I went right to work for Stewart Steeg and Walter Lampe at Steeg and Lampe appraisal firm,” said Moody. “They were a partnership 29 years ago. Later, we formed a new partnership and then formed this partnership.”
WHAT DID GRAINGER DO BEFORE THIS COMPANY?
“I worked at the property appraiser’s office for five years.”
BOTH OF YOU WENT TO SCHOOL FOR BUSINESS. HOW DID YOU END UP AS PROPERTY APPRAISERS?
“I took it as an elective,” said Moody. “And I was so interested in it that I went out and got a part-time job doing it while I was in school and decided that I liked it.”
“Like a lot of kids in college, I changed my major probably about four times,” said Grainger. “I started out pre-med and wanted to be a pediatrician. I found out that I was not going to be a medical doctor, so I rolled over into the college of business. I had a counselor who was involved in real estate and he got me pointed in that direction. I did well with it, so I stuck with it.”
HOW ARE COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE AND LAND PRICES RISING IN JACKSONVILLE?
“I would characterize our real estate market as having been very good over the last five years,” said Moody. “A lot of it is tied to our football team and to the city coming of age. A lot of sectors including residential, retail and commercial have done very well. Our downtown is back on track and I would say that prices have shown a fairly steady increase. A lot of it has been tied directly to our economy, which has been healthy.”
HOW HAVE THE BUILDINGS CHANGES?
“Real estate is cyclical,” said Grainger. “It runs in cycles. We’ve seen a lot of rehabilitation and changing uses of some of the older buildings in downtown. They may have not necessarily gone up in value, but they may be changing use and adding back to the value of downtown. You see a lot of reinvestment in downtown that we haven’t seen in a long time. There is residential downtown that we have never really had.”
WHAT UPGRADES HAVE YOU SEEN IN COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS?
“The biggest difference that you are seeing in rehabilitated projects or in new projects is all the wiring and computerization preparation for the what they are calling the smart buildings. They are trying to upgrade the physical structures to be able to take the technology,” said Grainger.
BIRTHPLACE
Moody was born in Philadelphia, but raised in Jacksonville. Grainger was born in Jacksonville.
COLLEGE
Moody has a bachelor’s in business administration with a concentration in land economics from the University of North Florida. Grainger has a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a focus in real estate from the University of Florida.
DESIGNATIONS
They both have the Member of the Appraiser Institute designation and are real estate brokers.
HOBBIES
Moody enjoys working out and playing golf. Grainger enjoys playing golf, hanging out with his children and going to the beach. In their spare time, they have a residential log cabin community that they are building in Maggie Valley, N.C.
FAMILY
Moody has been married to Mary for 32 years. They have four children, Kim, 30; Sam, 27; Monica, 25; and Blake, 21. Grainger has been married to Athena for 24 years and they have two children, Paul, 18; and Nick, 14.
RESIDES
Moody lives in Orange Park and Grainger lives in Queen’s Harbour.
CIVIC OR PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS
Moody is a member of the Association of Imminent Domain Professionals and the Rotary Club of Orange Park. Grainger is a member of the Rotary Club of Jacksonville. They are both members of the Northeast Florida Association of Realtors and the Northeast Florida Builders Association.
— by Michele Newbern Gillis