Valligent

[ragtime12]

Valligent is an appraisal review company soliciting appraisers nationwide. Has anyone had any experience with them?

 

[Riick]

Since they would not discuss fees with me,
I've refused to spend an hour or more of my time at their webinar.
.

 

[J Grant]

No experience , they did send me an email inviting me to a training session for their reviews, they described the reviews as short form without asking for an opinion of value, and then said that they supplied three comps for the review, I found that odd and emailed back for verification that they supplied the comps and not the reviewer, and I also asked what the fee was, they didn't respond to my email so I did not do the training.

 

[ragtime12]

Dear Riick and JGrant...thank you for your responses.

I did agree to sign up for their training program and sent copies of my stuff and signed a non-disclosure agreement. They sent me a log-in with a date and time to participate in their Webinar. At the appointed time I logged on and watched a 90 minute live video presentation and discussion with a trainer explaining the proprietary review software. There were about 5 participants as far as I could tell and I had a couple of questions and others had a few too.

The subject of fees came up and the presenter suggested that their goal was to have reviewers make $300/day at $30 per review, which takes about one hour for experienced reviewers . That would be completing 10 reviews per day (per USPAP) and a ten-hour day. They agreed to send a test package and instructions, which they did, and I was out of town the next day so 2 days after the webinar I attempted the test review.

It took me all day to get through the test package including reading all the material and reviewing the appraisal and their software, which is in fact a couple of packages. During that time I made 2 phone calls and sent 3 emails to the trainer with questions and did not get one reply. The recruiter exchanged emails with me several times and was helpful but could not answer technical questions. I experienced zero technical support. It's now 4 days after the webinar and I still have not heard back.

I'm a General Certified appraiser in two states, have been an appraiser for 25 years and done many reviews in that time, so I know what it takes to do a good USPAP compliant review. I read the appraisal thoroughly and it had no immediately obvious problems, so I took on the task of completing the review document.

The form followed the URAR format and consisted 163 checkboxes with an additional 10 optional. I read them all and responded viewing the test appraisal pdf on my screen. I switched back and forth doing the best to answer the question at hand. I discovered that 40 checkboxes out of the 163 required some external data look up from public records or the MLS. It was during this process that I had the most questions.

I got no support at all. I did not sign the review report and I did not send it in.

I decided that I did not want to deal with a company that did not respond to my questions. I also doubted that I could complete that many USPAP compliant reviews in one day.

Ragtime12

 

[Riick]

ragtime

First and maybe foremost, reviewing 10 hours a day, sitting in a chair, is bad for your health - ask me how I know.
I'm guessing that the appraisals are not necessarily local to the reviewer,
and that the company does not provide any data sources along with their (ahem, cough, cough) generous fee.

.

 

[J Grant]

Ragtime, thanks for the dowlow. I am glad I followed my istincts . When they did not respond to my email and answer the two simple questions, I got a bad feeling about them...if that is the start of a client relationship it never gets better. The fee is what I predicted also. Maybe appraisers will finally have enough and refuse to do these for this fee. Full liablity on each report for $30! And the amount of questions you describe sounds like min 2 hours each, which is $15 an hour. These clients always make everything sound so fast..it takes time to print out an OA, uploand info to website etc.

If clients need reviews done, they should engage the appraisers directly and pay a decent but still affordable fee for desk reviews and not this propietary software stuff so the intermediary makes most of the money and the product is still not a real review but some checklist designed by who...Valligent? A company that won;t even return an email or from what you wrote answer a tech support question.

 

[Mike Kennedy]

FYI ONLY - DEC 2009(poster has no personal knowledge about the interviewee or firm)

http://www.housingwire.com/2009/12/31/in-this-corner-valligent-ceo-jeremy-mccarty

FEB 2010 http://www.dsnews.com/articles/valligent-releases-new-appraiser-price-opinion-solution-2010-02-24

 

[Dale Smalley]

thanks for the post. I got the email as well.
Does not sound like a fun job for me. (Or profitable)

 

[23Degrees]

The form followed the URAR format and consisted 163 checkboxes with an additional 10 optional.

Be interesting to know if any of those 163 checkboxes trigger responsibility for Standard 1 ala question 10 on the 2000 Review form.

 

[J Grant]

I wonder what the lenders are paying Valligent for the fee, with $30 of it reaching the appraiser.