We first examine the effect of reporting model on observed audit fees, contrasting fair value versus amortized cost. Our focus on the real estate industry allows us to partition firms into those reporting their primary operating asset under either of these two models. The effect of reporting assets at fair value relative to amortized cost upon audit effort, as well as assessed reputation and litigation risk, is unclear a priori. Critics maintain that fair value reporting introduces substantial discretion into management estimates (e.g., Watts, 2006;Ramanna and Watts, 2010). This increased discretion can compound agency costs, leading auditors to increase their assessment of reputation and/or litigation risk and, consequently, their efforts to verify fair value estimates. This risk may be greater in contexts, such as real estate, where market prices for identical assets are generally unavailable. Interviews with real estate audit partners confirm that fair values for real estate assets are viewed as either level 2-type values (with market values available for similar, but not identical, properties) or level 3 values (with simplistic discounted cash flow analysis).Alternatively, fair values may reduce auditor reliance on management estimates and litigation risk (e.g., to the extent these values are derived from observable inputs). For example, firms with real estate assets typically have rent rolls for clients having multi-year leases within their properties, allowing auditors to more clearly identify and support management forecasts of future cash flows, and thus to more easily ascertain property value. In addition, under fair value reporting, firms must establish a routine process of valuation. Once this valuation process is established, the audit process then focuses on updating assumptions and inputs underlying the valuation estimate to reflect upward or downward changes in property values.