A San Francisco equipment appraisal is an independent opinion of value for machinery, equipment, and business personal property located in the city or anywhere on the Peninsula. Sencer Appraisal Associates prepares USPAP-compliant equipment appraisal reports for lenders, business owners, attorneys, CPAs, courts, buyers, sellers, insurers, trustees, and financial reporting teams.
San Francisco and Peninsula assignments are managed from our Oakland office by Garrett Schwartz, FASA, CEA, an ASA-accredited machinery and equipment appraiser, Fellow of the American Society of Appraisers, past International President of the American Society of Appraisers, and editor of the fourth edition of the ASA’s foundational textbook, Valuing Machinery and Equipment: The Fundamentals of Appraising Machinery and Technical Assets, published in 2020.
Most of our work here has been done on site, walking restaurant kitchens, production floors, contractor yards, and service businesses across the city and down the Peninsula. Where the intended use allows, assignments are completed as uninspected desktop appraisals instead. Which option makes sense is settled in the proposal, before the engagement begins.
Equipment Appraisal Reports for Lending, Transactions, Litigation, and Financial Reporting
San Francisco equipment appraisal reports are commonly needed when a lender, buyer, seller, court, tax authority, insurer, agency, or business owner requires a defensible value opinion for machinery, equipment, or business personal property. The intended use determines the value definition, scope of work, inspection requirements, and report format.
- Asset-based lending and collateral evaluations
- Business sale, purchase, and equipment transactions
- Litigation, expert witness testimony, and dispute resolution
- Mergers, acquisitions, and buy-side or sell-side transaction support
- Financial reporting under U.S. GAAP and IFRS, including purchase price allocations, fair value, and impairment testing
- Partner buyout and shareholder dispute support, including buyouts under California Corporations Code Section 2000
- Company dissolution and the division of business assets
- Divorce and partnership dissolution
- Probate, estate settlement, estate planning, and gift tax
- SBA 7(a) and 504 loan appraisals
- Insurance placement, replacement cost, and loss claims
- Employee stock ownership plan reporting
- Bankruptcy, insolvency, and receivership
- Asset disposition, equipment sales, and collateral recovery
- Property tax, sales and use tax, and ad valorem matters
- Surplus property disposition and public agency asset sales
- Government and grant-funded asset dispositions, including 2 CFR 200.313
- Charitable contribution appraisals supporting an IRS Form 8283
Who Uses Our San Francisco Equipment Appraisal Reports?
San Francisco and Peninsula equipment appraisal reports are used by lenders, business owners, buyers, sellers, attorneys, courts, CPAs, auditors, trustees, government agencies, insurers, and tax advisors who need an independent value opinion for machinery, equipment, or business personal property. The report is prepared for the intended user and the specific purpose of the assignment.
- Banks, credit unions, SBA lenders, and asset-based lenders
- Business owners, buyers, sellers, and investors
- Attorneys, courts, mediators, and litigation teams
- CPAs, auditors, and financial reporting teams
- Private equity, corporate development, and transaction teams
- Estate planners, trustees, executors, and tax advisors
- Government agencies, grant administrators, and public institutions
- Insurers, risk managers, and brokers
Public agencies are a recurring part of the practice. The firm has been engaged by government bodies at the federal, state, county, municipal, and tribal levels, including city and county agencies, municipal water and sewage districts, county offices of education, and public universities. Those assignments usually involve surplus property disposition, grant-funded asset compliance, acquisition review, or financial reporting.
Industries & Equipment We Appraise in San Francisco and on the Peninsula
San Francisco packs an unusual amount of business personal property into a small footprint. Restaurants, bakeries, and craft beverage operations fill the neighborhoods, service businesses and professional practices occupy the commercial corridors, and light manufacturing still runs in the southeast of the city. Down the Peninsula the mix shifts toward technology, laboratory and life-science operations, contractor yards, and the distribution and service businesses that support them.
Our industry experience helps us understand the assets, ask the right questions, and plan an appropriate inspection and approach. The valuation analysis follows the relevant market for each asset, which may be local, regional, national, or international.
Restaurants, bakeries, and craft beverage
Food and beverage is the largest share of our work in the city. We appraise commercial cooking lines, refrigeration and walk-in systems, bakery ovens, mixers, dividers and sheeters, dishwashing and warewashing equipment, bar and beverage systems, and complete restaurant inventories. Assets have also included brewhouses, fermentation and brite tanks, distilling systems, kegging and canning equipment, and the chillers and glycol systems that support them. See our restaurant equipment appraisals and food processing equipment appraisals pages for more details.
Laundry, dry cleaning, and garment care
Dry cleaning and commercial laundry operations are a recurring part of our work in the city and on the Peninsula, usually for lenders evaluating the equipment as collateral. Assets have included dry cleaning machines, washer extractors and tumble dryers, boilers and steam systems, pressing and finishing equipment, conveyors and assembly systems, point-of-sale and route vehicles, and leasehold improvements. See our commercial equipment appraisals page for more details.
Manufacturing, printing, and industrial production
We appraise complete production plants as readily as individual machines. Assets have included mixing, milling, and dispersion equipment, filling and packaging lines, bulk storage and process tanks, sewing and upholstery production equipment, cutting tables, dust collection, compressors, plant mobile equipment, and quality control instruments, along with printing, coating, and converting assets. See our manufacturing and industrial production equipment appraisals page for more details.
Medical, dental, laboratory, and life sciences
The Peninsula carries one of the densest concentrations of laboratory and life-science operations in the country, and the equipment that supports it is squarely within our practice. We appraise research and analytical instruments, thin-film and coating systems, environmental and test chambers, cleanroom and controlled-environment infrastructure, examination and procedure equipment, dental operatories, and imaging systems. See our medical equipment appraisals, clinical lab equipment appraisals, and dental equipment appraisals pages for more details.
Construction, heavy equipment, and contractor fleets
We appraise construction fleets, earthmoving machinery, foundation and pile-driving rigs, cranes, and contractor shop and yard assets. Assets have included excavators, loaders, dozers, compaction equipment, service trucks and vans, aerial lifts, trailers, welding and fabrication equipment, and shop tooling. See our heavy and construction equipment appraisals page for more details.
Entertainment, event, staging, and hospitality
The city’s event, theater, and hospitality economy runs on equipment that rarely sits still. We appraise staging and rigging inventories, hoists and motors, trussing, lighting and audiovisual systems, production and broadcast equipment, hotel and venue furnishings, and the vehicles and cases that move it all. Assignments of this kind have supported lending, transactions, insurance, and tax matters.
Business, office, professional, government, and service equipment
Our work also covers equipment and business personal property held by professional practices, technology and financial services firms, nonprofits and associations, schools and universities, government agencies, retailers, and other commercial and institutional operations. Assignments have included office systems and furnishings, point-of-sale and IT hardware, audiovisual and display systems, fitness equipment, vehicles, leasehold improvements, and other furniture, fixtures, and equipment (FF&E). We also appraise cultivation, extraction, and processing equipment for licensed cannabis operations. See our commercial equipment appraisals and cannabis industry equipment appraisals pages for more detail. If your equipment is not listed here, contact us. We are glad to talk through your specific machinery.
Meet your appraiser:
Garrett Schwartz, FASA, CEA
Sencer Appraisal provides independent machinery and equipment appraisals for lenders, business owners, attorneys, CPAs, and insurers with assets in San Francisco and on the Peninsula. These assignments are managed from the Oakland office by Garrett Schwartz, FASA, CEA, an ASA-accredited machinery and equipment appraiser and past International President of the American Society of Appraisers.
The firm’s offices in Oakland, California, and Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, are supported by a network of expert associates. Multi-site engagements are routine, and a single San Francisco assignment can extend to locations elsewhere in California or on the other side of the country. Matthew Edelstein, ASA, leads the Chadds Ford office, and both principals work across the practice as workload and subject matter require.
Our reports are certified as compliant with the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) and are prepared for the intended use of the appraisal, including asset-based lending, SBA financing, financial reporting, purchase price allocation, insurance, estate and gift tax, litigation, divorce, and business transactions. For clients reporting under other frameworks, our valuers work to the standard that applies to them, such as the International Valuation Standards (IVS).
Where in San Francisco and on the Peninsula We Work
We take assignments throughout San Francisco and San Mateo County. The areas below include markets we serve and locations where Sencer Appraisal has performed machinery and equipment appraisal assignments. Specific examples identify representative work, but they do not limit the industries or locations we serve.
San Francisco
The city is our densest area of work here, running from the Mission, the Castro, and Bernal Heights through SoMa, the Financial District, Hayes Valley, the Richmond and the Sunset, out to Bayview, the Dogpatch, and the industrial southeast. Assignments have included restaurants and bakeries appraised for lenders, for buyers, and in probate and dissolution matters; a craft distillery appraised for a secured lender; a manufacturing plant appraised for asset-based lending; a printing and coating operation appraised for an employee stock ownership transaction; a professional services firm appraised for financial reporting; and a dry cleaning operation appraised as loan collateral.
The northern Peninsula
Just south of the county line we serve Daly City, Brisbane, South San Francisco, San Bruno, Millbrae, Burlingame, Hillsborough, and Pacifica, where biotechnology, laboratory operations, distribution, and airport-adjacent service businesses drive the equipment base. Assignments have included a technology and materials operation appraised in connection with an equipment purchase, and an association’s fixed asset reconciliation covering multiple sites.
The mid-Peninsula
Through the middle of the county we serve San Mateo, Foster City, Belmont, San Carlos, Redwood City, Atherton, Menlo Park, Woodside, and Portola Valley. Assignments have included a brewery appraised for an asset-based lender, a restaurant appraised for a lender handling collateral disposition, a construction equipment operation appraised for an estate, a rental staging and rigging inventory appraised for a tax basis determination, and a garment care operation appraised as loan collateral.
The coast and the county line
We also serve Half Moon Bay, El Granada, Moss Beach, Montara, and the coastside communities, along with the hill towns along the county line. Field appraisals and desktop assignments are both available throughout the region, and travel is priced in the proposal before the engagement begins.
Field appraisals are available throughout San Francisco and San Mateo County, and uninspected desktop appraisals can often be completed from asset lists, photographs, and supporting records when the intended use allows. For the East Bay, see our Oakland page. For the South Bay, the Central Valley, and the rest of the state, see our California page. For work elsewhere in the United States and internationally, see Where We Value.
How the San Francisco Equipment Appraisal Process Works
The process usually begins with a short scoping conversation, followed by a written proposal, inspection or desktop analysis, market research, value development, and delivery of a signed USPAP-compliant report. The timing depends on the number of assets, the information available, the inspection requirements, and the intended use of the appraisal.
1. Initial conversation
You contact us by phone or through our Request a Proposal form. We discuss the assignment’s purpose, the assets involved, where they sit, the timeline, and whether the appraisal calls for an inspection or can be completed as a desktop assignment. There is no charge for this conversation.
2. Proposal and engagement
We send a written proposal with the scope of work, the value definitions to be developed, the deliverable format, the fee, and the estimated delivery date. Travel, when an inspection is warranted, is priced in the proposal rather than billed as a surprise later. Once you accept and execute the engagement letter, we begin the assignment.
3. Inspection or desktop analysis
For on-site assignments, Garrett or an associate travels to the location to inspect, photograph, and document the equipment. For desktop assignments, you provide an asset list and supporting documentation, and we develop value conclusions from that information under stated extraordinary assumptions.
4. Research and value development
We research comparable sales, manufacturer data, and market conditions specific to your assets and the value definition required by the assignment. Where more than one definition is needed, such as fair value for reporting alongside liquidation values for a lender, the report develops each and explains the difference. Findings are documented in the equipment appraisal report.
5. Final report delivery
You receive a signed equipment appraisal report as a secured PDF. The report is certified as compliant with USPAP and prepared for the intended user, which may be a lender, court, accounting firm, attorney, insurer, or business owner. When needed, the appraiser can support the report through deposition or trial testimony.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about San Francisco and Peninsula machinery and equipment appraisals.
Do you appraise machinery and equipment located in San Francisco and on the Peninsula?
Do you travel to San Francisco and the Peninsula for equipment inspections?
What is the difference between an on-site inspection and a desktop appraisal?
Can you appraise restaurant and food service equipment for a sale, a lender, or a dissolution?
Can you appraise equipment for a California Corporations Code Section 2000 buyout?
Can you appraise equipment for a purchase price allocation after an acquisition?
Do you appraise equipment for government agencies?
How much does a San Francisco equipment appraisal cost?
How long does an equipment appraisal take?
What is included in the appraisal report?
Are your equipment appraisal reports prepared for SBA, IRS, financial reporting, litigation, and court-related uses?
What credentials should I look for in an equipment appraiser?
What types of assets do you appraise?
Our appraisers conduct assignments at client sites. To start a conversation about an appraisal project, request an equipment appraisal proposal or give us a call.