TJSum
Elite Member
- Joined
- Nov 12, 2007
- Professional Status
- Certified Residential Appraiser
- State
- Maryland
I am just posting this to get a discussion going on how better to band together nationally to offer good, honest appraisals. The investors have seen the bank owned AMC's and AVM's are not the answer as they are counting their losses into the billions. The industry is screaming for a proper firewall. Instead of sitting back waiting for the lawmakers to set this up, we know how that goes, let's show them how it could be done and offer a true alternative.
Most of us consider ourselves independent business people, so the idea of a "union" does not pass the smell test. The closest thing to it that I am picturing is a Co-op. Each appraiser would be part owner, there would be no one giving orders like the AMC's, it would be more like an appraiser owned national registry. The marketing point would be a TRUE FIREWALL, the code of ethics to be a member and client would have to follow certain guidelines. No comp checks, no estimate of values on the refi orders, etc. No 24 hour turn times, no pressure except to produce a professional solid honest appraisal report.
Yes, it would start out very slow, until the word about the AFC (Appraisal Firewall Coop) got out, so we would limit the amount of members to, pick a number, say 500 nationally, which would average 10 per state. This would avoid too much coverage for any one area.
The appraiser would set his own fees, and keep 100% of it, the COOP is really only an appraiser owned registry that sticks to a certain code of ethics to create the FIREWALL that the industry is screaming for. The COOP fee to the appraiser could be approximately $15 per month, to pay for the website maintenance and for someone to manage it, maybe an appraiser who is more into tech stuff than actual appraising
This would come to $90,000 per year which should cover those expenses. We could then tack on another $15 per month for advertising, to get the word out. This number could be anything depending on how much advertising we wish to do. At these rates, each appraiser would be charged $360 per year, so one appraisal per year would cover the expenses.
The main problems to be worked out, how do we monitor the appraisers to make sure they are sticking to the code of ethics. ?????
We could have our "10 Commandments" or whatever pasted on the main page of the website to show any potential client what we are about and the thing we are marketing is the FIREWALL currently missing in the industry. We are not marketing speed or assignments to the lowest bidder, etc.
I know 95% of the industry will not want us, no problem, even 1% would give us all a nice income And once the word got out, maybe the investors who are counting their billion dollar losses right now and are looking for a fix, may just put enough pressure on the right people to use our services.
The Coop could have a rep for each state, but 50 reps might be to hard to work with to make any decisions. So maybe a board of 5 "decsision makers" could be formed from the 50 reps via a yearly vote.
Just some ideas, to throw around, it is just a starting point. Most of us have a few honest clients we work with locally, but with the changes in the industry with the internet making things more national, we need to find these honest clients nationally. How many times have our good clients asked us if we knew appraisers from outside our service area ???
Let's not attack each other, lets put our heads and ideas together and give something like this a try, it beats being a victim with nothing to do but complain about the system.
Lets hear some ideas :icon_idea: :icon_idea:
Most of us consider ourselves independent business people, so the idea of a "union" does not pass the smell test. The closest thing to it that I am picturing is a Co-op. Each appraiser would be part owner, there would be no one giving orders like the AMC's, it would be more like an appraiser owned national registry. The marketing point would be a TRUE FIREWALL, the code of ethics to be a member and client would have to follow certain guidelines. No comp checks, no estimate of values on the refi orders, etc. No 24 hour turn times, no pressure except to produce a professional solid honest appraisal report.
Yes, it would start out very slow, until the word about the AFC (Appraisal Firewall Coop) got out, so we would limit the amount of members to, pick a number, say 500 nationally, which would average 10 per state. This would avoid too much coverage for any one area.
The appraiser would set his own fees, and keep 100% of it, the COOP is really only an appraiser owned registry that sticks to a certain code of ethics to create the FIREWALL that the industry is screaming for. The COOP fee to the appraiser could be approximately $15 per month, to pay for the website maintenance and for someone to manage it, maybe an appraiser who is more into tech stuff than actual appraising
This would come to $90,000 per year which should cover those expenses. We could then tack on another $15 per month for advertising, to get the word out. This number could be anything depending on how much advertising we wish to do. At these rates, each appraiser would be charged $360 per year, so one appraisal per year would cover the expenses.The main problems to be worked out, how do we monitor the appraisers to make sure they are sticking to the code of ethics. ?????
We could have our "10 Commandments" or whatever pasted on the main page of the website to show any potential client what we are about and the thing we are marketing is the FIREWALL currently missing in the industry. We are not marketing speed or assignments to the lowest bidder, etc.
I know 95% of the industry will not want us, no problem, even 1% would give us all a nice income
And once the word got out, maybe the investors who are counting their billion dollar losses right now and are looking for a fix, may just put enough pressure on the right people to use our services.The Coop could have a rep for each state, but 50 reps might be to hard to work with to make any decisions. So maybe a board of 5 "decsision makers" could be formed from the 50 reps via a yearly vote.
Just some ideas, to throw around, it is just a starting point. Most of us have a few honest clients we work with locally, but with the changes in the industry with the internet making things more national, we need to find these honest clients nationally. How many times have our good clients asked us if we knew appraisers from outside our service area ???
Let's not attack each other, lets put our heads and ideas together and give something like this a try, it beats being a victim with nothing to do but complain about the system.
Lets hear some ideas :icon_idea: :icon_idea:
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