Appraiser Joe Rosen, who’s been evaluating property for the past 43 years, continues to work at his craft and doesn’t appear he’s ready to slow down anytime soon. He remains an appraiser at Rosen Appraisal Associates, a business his father Harvey launched in 1956.
Rosen, 63, worked in his father’s office while earning a business degree from the University of South Carolina and keeps a file listing 54 different kinds of appraisals he’s performed. He’s lost count of his bread-and-butter work, the thousands of residential home appraisals he does each year, he told a local newspaper.
“We’re probably the oldest appraisal business in Columbia,” Rosen told the Columbia Starr. “In our early years, Columbia wasn’t growing then like it is now. Our work was mainly residential and mainly in Columbia, Richland County, and the Irmo area.”
Rosen says a cemetery appraisal he did was interesting, but hardly unique among the jobs he’s done over the years. People have called on him to appraise property used for amusement parks, radio towers, truck stops, and billboards.
“Main Street is one of the fastest redeveloping areas, thanks to students and people who like to live downtown. Too, you’ve got the residential development in the Arsenal Hill area,” he told the paper. “Most all of Lexington County is growing. Even out of the way places like Gaston.”
Rosen is among 2,600 appraisers in South Carolina. More than 2,000 of them are certified residential or certified general real estate appraisers.