The New Appraisal Industry

[Joe Flacco]

Is STARS still around?

No. They closed in 2018.

 

[ZZGAMAZZ]

C'mon, now. Let's not rewrite history of the use of runners. The number of licensed/certified appraisers in our state could not have doubled between 2001-2008 without the fraudulent "did inspect" countersignature of many of the supervising appraisers.

The entire sweatshop model that prevailed up through 2008 was built on the backs of unsupervised trainees and supervisors fraudulently signing "did inspect". We've even had a couple highly vocal AF posters who expressed their frustration at being unable to perpetuate that model as a result of the limitation of 3 trainers per supervisor. They came into the business with that expectation and got cut off from it right as they were bringing their "fee shop" online.

The 3/appraiser rule came out precisely as the result of the abuses of the sweatshop operators WRT trainees.

Your comments beat me to the punch. How many apprisers who matriculated as trainees during the decade leading up to 2007 in retrospect think they received adequate on the job training ---not just because of the inherently inappropriate protocol that exposed a trainee to just one mentor, but also because--at least in my case--one licensed supervisor ran a shop with an estimated 3 dozen trainees.

 

[Mark K]

Wonder why your volumes are down, and waivers and PDC reports and the like can't explain the entire matter? Well, what many of us know, and our clients don't care about and are encouraging and supporting, is that everyone else is lying, cheating, and stealing with abandon and the regulatory system simply does not care. They are more focused on ensuring anyone with a pulse can become an appraiser without cost or effort, and ensuring everyone, regardless of how ethical or competent do not have their ability to "earn a living" is compromised even when found to be violating every rule many of us waste a lot of time and effort complying with.

I think they are more focused on ensuring that anyone with a pulse can buy a house and, as a result, are watering down the appraisal and appraiser standards to achieve this goal, not to mention lowering the lending standards.

Real estate in general is one of the few industries that can't be outsourced offshore so if they can move even one part of the equation overseas, the valuation process, that's one less potential roadblock to handing out mortgages. Appraisals can't be outsourced...yet...but once the data mining F/F forms fill the server farms with sufficient data, "Ralph" in India will crank out a report in one hour or less that's acceptable to the banksters and he'll do it for $10/day. And, eventually, Ralph's reports will be replaced by AI reports.

The light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train for most of the appraisal profession.

 

[Tim Hicks (Texas)]

How many here are making that $150K a year doing Regorra hybrids?

 

[J Grant]

How many here are making that $150K a year doing Regorra hybrids?

I think they are lucky to be making 15k a year.

 

[djd09]

when you realize that the gse's have become the largest unlinscend appraisal firm in the history of the world while also being the users of appraisals services and making up quasi laws for appraisers...then it will all make sense

 

[John Hassler]

Can you articulate what motivation you think any AMC would have for unilaterally limiting the number of appraisers at their disposal? Contrary to what their lender's appraisal policy requires?

Because I can't think of a reason why any AMC would do that, much less most or all of them. They compete with each other, so if one does it they all basically have to do it or else lose business to their competition.

Lender: "We will accept did not inspect'"​

AMC: "We don't care what you want. We tell you what you will or won't accept because all your assignments are belong to us."​

​

The obvious parallel to

Lender: "We require appraisers to be paid at $600 minimum fees"​

AMC: "We don't care what you want. We tell you what the appraisers will be paid because all your assignments are belong to us."​

I can see AMCs doing this for simply wanting to reduce the number of “sku’s” they need to deal with. The twenty lender clients the AMC likely have twenty different SOW requirements. If the AMC makes an all encompassing SOW that meets all of these twenty lenders’ needs then it streamlines and simplifies the AMC’s process including the level of training needed by staff.

We know the above has happened because AFers have posted many times here that the SOW for direct assignments from a lender differs from the SOW from that same lender through an AMC.

 

[John Hassler]

When mortgage brokers dominated, pre-HVCC, you have everything thing from a 1 (worst) to a 10 (best). I literally filtered through hundreds of mortgage brokers to get to a stable of 5 awesome honest ones that were =>8, maybe 10 or so 6-7s, and a few 5s to fill in the gaps. I had all of my regular MBs trained to send me the prelim without me having to ask.

With AMCs, pre and post 2009, you have a client on the scale that tops out at 5 with most being 3 and 4s. They are all cr*p clients that would be one and done if they were MBs. You also have to deal with and educate the AMCs poorly trained staff and wait, and manage, having to get paid 30-60 days after assignment completion. AMC clients just aren’t worth the effort.

 

[John Hassler]

In response to the OP, I can say from first hand experience that Trainees providing the only physical inspection while their supervisor signed as “did inspect” was a routine issue. When discovered, and I’m not going to disclose the techniques used, it became a major problem for the Trainee and a huge problem for the Supervisor. One of my last major acts as a regulator was negotiating the surrender of a Supervisor’s license (to save the state the cost of a hearing) for such behavior.


To my former boss’s credit, a trainee outreach program was developed whereby after every Trainee license issuance, that Trainee was contacted by a state investigator (all licensees) to answer questions and go over requirements needed to claim experience to upgrade a license to avoid the situation noted above.

 

[djd09]

they weren't inspecting...they were data collectors