Abstract. A major portion of the existing Turkish building stock consists of seismically deficient buildings, like in many other earthquake-prone developing countries. For the mitigation of the damage before an earthquake, the seismic evaluation of the existing building stock is the first step. However, the great number of buildings to be evaluated is an obstacle for the detailed assessment. Rapid evaluation methods are developed to minimize the need of resources for the evaluation of the buildings in great numbers. In this study, performances of the rapid evaluation methods to estimate seismic damage are investigated by examining the correlation between the rapid evaluation method scores and the quantified damage states after the 19 May 2011 Simav (Turkey) earthquake. A total of 144 reinforced concrete buildings are carefully examined in terms of the properties of structural system, architectural layout, concrete strength, soil conditions and damage state. The correlation of rapid evaluation methods with the observed damage happened to be low. It is concluded that, if the building damage state is determined by the local brittle damages in members, the estimations with the rapid evaluation methods may diverge from the actual scene after an earthquake.