Do you perform Field or Desk Reviews?

[Bobby Bucks]

For those of you who perform review work or are just curious about them

 

[glenn walker]

For those of you who perform review work or are just curious about them

No Fields did them for years but almost always only ordered when there are numerous quality and value issues
and often twice the work.

 

[The Bob]

IMO you have to be a masochist to take on review work.

 

[Fernando]

I don't do reviews but when I get an order, first I look at the client name and then the address.
If I like the client, I continue to check out the address.
I like to work with those I like.

 

[shrubberyvaluation]

I look at the fee that I would be paid and then if I'm bored I'll take a look at the report, but I have never done a review.

 

[Overimprovement]

Used to do them but they were typically pains so I raised my fee and unsurprisingly stopped getting them. The reality seems to be they are not randomly assigned--only if there is hair, usually value related, but I also tended to find many issues as well. Most required (field reviews) live comp pics of the original comps and the ones I would have used. At that point, it is almost a full appraisal, with the added bonus of pointing out all the prior flaws.

If someone is hungry for work, I guess they could be viable. I just prefer regular old inspect the house and comps and write the report for a fair fee kind of work.

 

[The Warrior Monk]

I don't do reviews anymore, though I did a substantial number of them years ago for a major bank over a two year period. I looked at all the things you noted, but there are other key categories I would look at first. One of them was zoning. If the appraiser simply but "Residential" rather than the actual zoning designation, it was indicative of either laziness or a lack of knowledge. The remainder of the report generally would generally be consistent with the "fill in the blank" level of quality.

 

[Overimprovement]

Yeah, zoning is a big one. I actually saw a few that said the generic 'residential' when in fact it was commercial. Oops. Bet that was a fun conversation.
I work in OH, which has independent townships. I also have 5 counties I cover, and each city and many towns have their own zoning too. Well over 150 separate zoning jurisdictions all within 45 minutes. Takes me 15 minutes sometimes to weed through it and get the correct designation and description of the zoning.

Where I used to live, I had 3 main zoning jurisdictions for the 3 cities of any size in my coverage area. Outside of those 3, 95% of my assignments had literally no zoning. Talk about culture shock moving here!

 

[Fernando]

In some areas the residential zoning could be at least 5 different variations of zoning depending on lot size and such.
Before most of my peers would put what's in the assessors records which is usually wrong because it's not detailed enough.
I don't want to bother with these nit picky details which I can do.

 

[shrubberyvaluation]

I don't do reviews anymore, though I did a substantial number of them years ago for a major bank over a two year period. I looked at all the things you noted, but there are other key categories I would look at first. One of them was zoning. If the appraiser simply but "Residential" rather than the actual zoning designation, it was indicated of either laziness or a lack of knowledge. The remainder of the report generally would generally be consistent with the "fill in the blank" level of quality.

I'm curious did you ever contact the appraiser you were reviewing. I had someone reach out to me that was reviewing one of my reports claiming he couldn't find something that he said I needed to be USPAP compliant. I wasn't sure if I should of responded, but I quoted USPAP to show he was wrong so I wouldn't have to deal with the nonsense later.