Robert Abelson

Robert Abelson Ph.D. (AKA Dr. Bob) has been appraising commercial and residential real properties in Southern California since 1993.  His appraisal practice assignments specialize in valuation issues for estate tax and income tax reporting, litigation, eminent domain, historical appraisals, and private party issues such as (landlord /tenant fair market rent for renewals, purchase price options, etc.). Dr. Bob has testified as an expert witness, and he values undivided interests in real property.  His real estate consulting practice includes tax assessment consulting/appeals and real estate forensic data research.  His clients include attorneys, CPAs in large and small firms, licensed professional fiduciaries, trust administrators at institutions and in private practice, and real estate development companies.  He has been a member of the South Bay Estate Planning Council since 1998, has been serving on their board since 2011, and is also a member of the Estate Planning and Trust Council of Long Beach since 2004.

Dr. Bob has been teaching Real Estate (RE) Appraisal since 2011 and RE Land and Economics since 2017 at UCLA Extension.  He has been an Associate Faculty Member at Saddleback College since 2010 (Uniform Standards of Appraisal Practice (USPAP), RE Appraisal, Advanced RE Appraisal, and Real Estate Economics). He serves on their Real Estate Advisory Committee.  He has been an Associate Faculty Member at Irvine Valley College since 2019, where he teaches RE Appraisal.  In 2020 he received the “Advancing Real Estate Education Award” from the CA Community Colleges RE Education Center.  He earned a Certificate of Competence in RE from El Camino College in 1998.  Currently, he teaches RE Appraisal CE classes for The Columbia Institute and McKissock Real Estate, and he taught RE Appraisal courses for Kaplan Professional from (2003-2009).

Dr. Bob has presented appraisal subject matter topics at conferences and chapter meetings for the Southern California Chapter of the Appraisal Institute (SCCAI).  He is a co-author of the California Community Colleges Real Estate Appraisal Study Guide for Students and Instructors.  He has written and reviewed real estate textbook materials for Dearborn RE Education and Learning Express and USPAP courses for Oncourse Learning.

Before becoming a real estate appraiser, Dr. Bob was a defense aerospace scientist at TRW Space and Defense Systems Group in Redondo Beach, CA (now Northrop Grumman) and Physics International in San Leandro, CA.  His degrees include a doctorate in Geophysics from UCLA, a master’s in physics from UCSB, and a bachelor’s in physics from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook.