Eyes Up. Eighteen Years.
Eighteen years. What a crisis, a pandemic, and a national footprint actually build.
Friday was March 6th.
Eighteen years ago, I signed the paperwork that made Clarendon real.
I’ve been sitting with that number since. Not because milestones demand reflection. But because eighteen years is long enough to look back and actually see something.
Where It Started
I became a commercial real estate appraiser because of a program.
MassHousing and the Appraisal Institute created an initiative specifically to bring more diversity into the CRE appraisal industry. I was part of that cohort. The firm where I trained did significant work in affordable housing — and that exposure shaped everything that came after.
I went on to a major lender, as a senior appraiser doing market rate apartment appraisals. I learned the discipline of rigorous valuation in a high-volume, high-stakes environment. I learned what it meant to deliver reliable analysis under pressure.
Then I opened my own firm.
The focus wasn’t affordable housing from the start. But the expertise I had built — and the relationships I had developed in that sector — gradually pulled the work in that direction. It wasn’t a pivot. It was a recognition. This was where the need was greatest. And this was where I could do the most meaningful work.
I founded Clarendon on March 6, 2008.
Six months later, the financial crisis hit.
What Eighteen Years Actually Looks Like
We did not start in a good market.
We started six months before the worst financial collapse in a generation. And then we made a decision. We held. We focused. We leaned into the work that doesn’t stop when markets collapse — because affordable housing compliance doesn’t stop. Housing authorities don’t pause. Families don’t pause. The need for rigorous, reliable market intelligence doesn’t pause.
That decision set the character of the firm.
In eighteen years, we have worked through conditions that tested every professional services firm in this space.
We worked through government shutdowns. The kind that freeze contracts mid-cycle and require you to hold your clients steady when the ground is moving.
We worked through Hurricane Sandy. Properties damaged. Portfolios disrupted. Markets in the Northeast reshaped overnight. The work of market alignment doesn’t stop because a storm hit. It becomes more urgent.
Then COVID arrived.
In-person inspections were suspended nationally. Section 8 renewal timelines compressed and extended and compressed again. Our clients were managing unprecedented uncertainty across their entire portfolios.
While most firms were scrambling to figure out how to work remotely, we didn’t miss a beat. From the beginning, Clarendon was intentionally built for distributed national work — cloud-based, location-independent, designed to serve our clients across multiple states without being anchored to a single office. That wasn’t a response to COVID. That was the architecture of the firm.
And then we went further.
We developed a COVID inspection protocol that was implemented nationally by HUD. We didn’t wait for guidance. We built it.
We are working right now through a period of federal policy shifts that are creating new questions for every affordable housing owner in the country.
Each of those moments required the same thing. Steady analysis. Clear communication. Reliable delivery when reliability was hardest to come by.
That is what this firm has built.
The Team
Here is what I didn’t fully understand in 2008.
I knew the work. I understood valuation methodology. I understood SAFMR analysis, non-shelter services valuation, the nuance of a phased RCS approach for a complex portfolio. I had the expertise.
What I didn’t yet understand was what it would feel like to watch someone else carry that work forward with the same care.
There is a moment every founder knows. The moment when you realize the work has grown beyond you. Not because you’ve lost control of it. Because the people around you have grown into it.
I have watched team members walk into property inspections in markets they had never visited. Deliver analysis I would have been proud to deliver myself.
That doesn’t happen in a year. It doesn’t happen in five.
It takes time. Consistency. The willingness to invest in people before you can prove the return.
What the Work Is
Affordable housing has changed in eighteen years.
The shift from REAC to NSPIRE. The evolution of SAFMR methodology. The way technology has transformed market analysis — and how much human judgment still matters in interpreting what the data actually means.
What has not changed is the stakes.
Behind every market study and appraisal is a property owner trying to keep a development financially viable. Behind every contract renewal is a community of residents whose stability depends on whether that building stays in the program. Behind every preliminary rent assessment is the gap between what a property earns and what it could earn — and the difference that gap makes over time.
I don’t take that lightly. I never have.
Eyes Up
Earlier this week I posted a photo with two words.
Eyes up.
I mean it the way I always mean it. Stay present. Stay forward. Keep your attention on what is ahead.
But on an anniversary like this one, it means something more specific.
Eyes up — because the view from eighteen years is worth seeing clearly. Not to celebrate the distance. To understand what the distance proves.
We started before a crisis. We held through every disruption since. We built the protocols other firms followed. We grew the team, deepened the relationships, and expanded the national footprint — without ever compromising the quality of the work.
That is the track record.
Year nineteen starts now.
If you are working through a transaction, a compliance requirement, a market intelligence need, or a strategic portfolio opportunity — I would welcome the conversation.
Eve Moss is the Founder and Managing Principal of Clarendon, a commercial real estate firm specializing in housing markets nationwide. With 30+ years of experience, she operates from New York, Boston, and Cleveland, serving agencies, property owners and policymakers.
For inquiries about market analysis, valuation, brokerage services, or strategic advisory, contact eve.moss@clarendon.com or visit clarendon.com.
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