Nationality American Role Author Name Randall Bell | Children 4 Spouse(s) Nancy | |
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Occupation Real estate broker, appraiser, economist, speaker, author Known for "The Master of Disaster" Books Real Estate Damages, QuickMarks, Property Owners Manual, Disasters: Wasted Lives - Val, Strategy 360: 10 Steps to | ||
Randall Bell is an author, economist, and licensed real estate broker and appraiser based in Los Angeles, California. Additionally, he is the Director of Landmark Research Group, LLC. Bell is a leading expert on real estate damages internationally. He has consulted on Nicole Brown Simpson's Los Angeles condominium; the mansion where 39 Heaven's Gate members committed suicide; JonBenét Ramsey's house in Colorado; the World Trade Center site; and properties damaged in the Rodney King riots and by Hurricane Katrina. Bell also co-founded Bell Anderson & Sanders, an appraisal and consulting firm that evaluates stigmatized properties and served as its CEO for 15 years.
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Early life and education
Bell grew up in Fullerton, California as the son of an engineer and homemaker, and attended Troy High School. He has a degree in finance from BYU and an MBA from UCLA. He received his doctoral degree from Fielding Graduate University in Santa Barbara, California.
Career
Bell began working on appraisals of environmental and asbestos damage in the 1980s. He has also assessed Chinese dry wall and sink holes. In 1992, Bell assessed the damages of the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles. After the riots, he decided to focus only on damaged properties. Bell created the Bell Chart, a rating system that categorizes the 10 types of detrimental conditions and their corresponding economic damages of properties in 1992. The system ranks properties from class 1 (no detrimental effects) to class 10 (an incurable condition). In 1994, he began assessing stigmatized properties such as the damages of the Northridge earthquake and wildfires in Malibu, California. In 1997, he became the national director of the Real Estate Damages practice of Price Waterhouse. He left the firm in 1999, and co-founded Bell Anderson & Sanders with two partners.
Bell works with properties that have been affected by crime, environmental contamination, construction defects and natural disaster. He has consulted on Nicole Brown Simpson's condominium; the Beverly Hills estate where Charles Manson's followers murdered Sharon Tate and four other people in 1969; the Rancho Santa Fe mansions where the bodies of 39 Heaven's Gate cult members were found, the house in Boulder, Colorado, where JonBenét Ramsey was killed; and the home of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter Adam Lanza. He has also consulted on Hurricane Katrina; the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands; the September 11 attacks at the World Trade Center; and the United Airlines Flight 93 crash site in Shanksville. Bell has traveled to Chernobyl, Hiroshima; to the World Trade Center site; and to Egypt, Jordan, Israel and West Bank to find comparisons in properties damaged by terrorist attacks. He has also traveled to Antarctica to interview scientists about climate change how it affects costs, such as insurance for home owners. The Appraisal Institute published Bell’s book Real Estate Damages: Applied Economics and Detrimental Conditions in 2008. In 2011, Bell returned from Guam, where he consulted with landowners whose property included the cave where Shoichi Yokoi, a Japanese army sergeant, hid for 28 years, unaware that World War II had ended. The landowners opened a theme park on the property and consulted with Bell.
Personal life
Randall Bell lives in Laguna Beach, California, with his wife and has four children. Bell volunteers at the Laguna Beach homeless and rehabilitation center, Friendship Shelter.