Are Staff Appraisers paid customary and reasonable fees?

[ucbruin]

Is your real name Dezra? Why are you so entitled? There is no way you have the experience of a 50 year old appraiser. How many log homes, earth homes, manufactured homes, modular homes, barndominiums have you appraised?

Based on this comment....
No wonder fees have been stagnant for decades....

 

[Tim Hicks (Texas)]

Based on this comment....
No wonder fees have been stagnant for decades....

Stagnant? What are you getting for fees? When I started in 1991 fees were $325. Now the VA fee is $675. Most lenders pay $600+ here. Technology has also reduced the cost and time of doing an appraisal significantly.

 

[ucbruin]

Stagnant? What are you getting for fees? When I started in 1991 fees were $325. Now the VA fee is $675. Most lenders pay $600+ here. Technology has also reduced the cost and time of doing an appraisal significantly.

That's because YOU....
Have log, berm, earth, etc. housing....
And I haven't....

 

[Tim Hicks (Texas)]

That's because YOU....
Have log, berm, earth, etc. housing....
And I haven't....

And because I refuse to work for AMCs.

 

[ucbruin]

And because I refuse to work for AMCs.

You should have said that in your earlier post....

 

[George Hatch]

Under capitalism, the employer will never fully value the work that you do. They will always take some of your labor for themselves.

I'm going to challenge that. You're working as a fee appraiser right now. If you were running a fee shop with (let's say) 4-6 licensed/certified appraisers and were carrying the data, E&O, accounting, management and marketing costs, what percentage split do you think you'd be able to pay them?

IRL our business is so competitive that there is no net profit which can accrue to even the active principals of a fee shop - who are not passive owners - over the entire length of a real estate cycle. The headline name of a fee shop has to work at the business in order to get paid. They may be managing instead of appraising, or appraising instead of managing, but they're not on permanent vacay just because they own a fee shop.

They'll clear a profit when times are good but when the volumes drop most smaller operations will actually fail due to being unable to cover the fixed overheads they committed to back when the volumes were high. The only exceptions to that are the operations which are actually subsidiaries or larger holding companies (like a bank, commercial brokerage or accounting firm) that have the resources to carry those losses for years at a time until the markets recover.

You've posted before about your struggles keeping yourself afloat as a fee appraiser and we're just 3 or 4 months into this current pattern. So you know from firsthand experience that everything I'm saying is true about what happens in this business during a downturn. You KNOW that you don't have what it takes to generate enough business off your own name to run a fee shop of any kind unless it's to exploit desperate trainees AND fraudulently single sign those reports as if you'd done it all by yourself. And that's not personal to you, virtually none of us have what it takes to do that through thick and thin. That's how competitive the market for appraisal services is. As is also the case for most businesses.

 

[RCA]

Read for content. What's under discussion are the economic and political systems. My comment wasn't an expression of opposition or hostility to my neighbor, only that I owe my family more than I owe my neighbors. And the State.

But it certainly seems from all the posts you do in fact hate your neighbors. Probably that explains why you dismiss neighborhoods in favor of market areas. I could speak to other observations, but all of us show our characteristics on this forum - good and bad. If you study how a member responds and how they have changed the character of their responses over (in some cases) many years, you will become somewhat enlightened. (By the way, there is nothing wrong with the anti-neighbor sentiment. The Germans have always been fond of ignoring neighbors and treating them like they never knew them - probably because they have for the most part, historically, been a relatively dense population and have learned the advantages of such a policy. But that should leave you wondering as to the importance of neighborhoods.)

This speaks to a larger problem of appraiser bias. Maybe we SHOULDN'T let appraisers define these areas - at least not without statistical justification. This is indeed a wide-open door for appraiser bias. Cluster analysis, regression over latitude/longitude and perhaps the use of established MLS areas would be best.

What I really see when looking at the areas I have appraised over the years is the gradual disappearance of what at one time were rather distinct neighborhoods. From population growth and change.

What I see are nodes and filaments with sometimes large in-between areas. It is often like peering into the nervous system of some animal - or studying intergalactic space via pictures from the Hubble Space telescope. At times we see tumors and other strange growths. Like, of all things, Golf Courses that push housing into different directions, - or shopping malls that seem to attract other businesses over time - and create commercial areas that just keep growing, at the same time impacting the nature of housing. E.g. The Serramonte Mall Shopping Center in Daly City.

The world changes - yet appraisal is run by idiots who can do no better than keep thinking in the same way, decade after decade.

 

[George Hatch]

But it certainly seems from all the posts you do in fact hate your neighbors. Probably that explains why you dismiss neighborhoods in favor of market areas. I could speak to other observations, but all of us show our characteristics on this forum - good and bad. If you study how a member responds and how they have changed the character of their responses over (in some cases) many years, you will become somewhat enlightened. (By the way, there is nothing wrong with the anti-neighbor sentiment. The Germans have always been fond of ignoring neighbors and treating them like they never knew them - probably because they have for the most part been a relatively dense population and have learned the advantages of such a policy. But that should leave you wondering as to the importance of neighborhoods.)

This speaks to a larger problem of appraiser bias. Maybe we SHOULDN'T let appraisers define these areas - at least not without statistical justification. This is indeed a wide-open door for appraiser bias. Cluster analysis, regression over latitude/longitude and perhaps the use of established MLS areas would be best.

What I really see when looking at the areas I have appraised over the years is the gradual disappearance of what at one time were rather distinct neighborhoods. Population growth and change.

What I see are nodes and filaments with sometimes large in-between areas. It is often like peering into the nervous system of some animal - or studying intergalactic space via pictures from the Hubble Space telescope. At times we see tumors and other strange growths. Like, of all things, Golf Courses that push housing into different directions, - or shopping malls that seem to attract other businesses over time - and create commercial areas that just keep growing, at the same time impacting the nature of housing. E.g. The Serramonte Mall Shopping Center in Daly City.

The world changes - yet appraisal is run by idiots who can do no better than keep thinking in the same way, decade after decade.

WTH are you talking about "I hate my neighbors"? And I have NEVER "dismissed" neighborhoods. What I've said about that is that neighborhood isn't always synonymous with market segment. Which as a CG you should have a very clear understanding of that.

"The subject is a 4,000sf SFR with 3 room additions that's located in a neighborhood consisting of 1000-1300sf SFRs. It's market segment includes other overbuilt homes in similar neighborhoods in this town." ​

 

[JeffSH]

I'm going to challenge that. You're working as a fee appraiser right now. If you were running a fee shop with (let's say) 4-6 licensed/certified appraisers and were carrying the data, E&O, accounting, management and marketing costs, what percentage split do you think you'd be able to pay them?

IRL our business is so competitive that there is no net profit which can accrue to even the active principals of a fee shop - who are not passive owners - over the entire length of a real estate cycle. The headline name of a fee shop has to work at the business in order to get paid. They may be managing instead of appraising, or appraising instead of managing, but they're not on permanent vacay just because they own a fee shop.

They'll clear a profit when times are good but when the volumes drop most smaller operations will actually fail due to being unable to cover the fixed overheads they committed to back when the volumes were high. The only exceptions to that are the operations which are actually subsidiaries or larger holding companies (like a bank, commercial brokerage or accounting firm) that have the resources to carry those losses for years at a time until the markets recover.

You've posted before about your struggles keeping yourself afloat as a fee appraiser and we're just 3 or 4 months into this current pattern. So you know from firsthand experience that everything I'm saying is true about what happens in this business during a downturn. You KNOW that you don't have what it takes to generate enough business off your own name to run a fee shop of any kind unless it's to exploit desperate trainees AND fraudulently single sign those reports as if you'd done it all by yourself. And that's not personal to you, virtually none of us have what it takes to do that through thick and thin. That's how competitive the market for appraisal services is. As is also the case for most businesses.

The only downturn I experienced was when I was a trainee, and my boss didn't give me any work for an entire fall/winter. Worked at a call-center. Besides that, I've always had work. I'm fearful about this winter, but we shall see.

I have zero desire to run a fee shop and take a piece of someone's work. I will fully support my trainee in going out on their own once they are certified. There is no reason to work for someone else if you are a residential appraiser, unless you can get right-of-way work or other specialty work.

My trainee will receive a base salary of $50k, plus a bonus system that starts at 0 and increases as the person takes less time to supervise. Assuming I need to inspect every appointment, a trainee working full time (7 appraisals per week) would make ~$75k. If I don't have to supervise every inspection, then they'd make closer to $95k. I wouldn't pay for anything, maybe E&O.

It only works if it's busy. I would feel absolutely horrible if I didn't have work for my trainee.

 

[glenn walker]

The only downturn I experienced was when I was a trainee, and my boss didn't give me any work for an entire fall/winter. Worked at a call-center. Besides that, I've always had work. I'm fearful about this winter, but we shall see.

I have zero desire to run a fee shop and take a piece of someone's work. I will fully support my trainee in going out on their own once they are certified. There is no reason to work for someone else if you are a residential appraiser, unless you can get right-of-way work or other specialty work.

My trainee will receive a base salary of $50k, plus a bonus system that starts at 0 and increases as the person takes less time to supervise. Assuming I need to inspect every appointment, a trainee working full time (7 appraisals per week) would make ~$75k. If I don't have to supervise every inspection, then they'd make closer to $95k. I wouldn't pay for anything, maybe E&O.

It only works if it's busy. I would feel absolutely horrible if I didn't have work for my trainee.

Your dreaming its never going to happen