Adapt or Die?

[Tom Foster]

The appraisal pain will never say goodbye, like the guilt that hangs around your neck.

Many appraisers feel they are locked in a cage. You've got to learn to live until the perception that divides you from them dries up.

For some reason we never asked why they steal the candy from a laughing baby's mouth.

 

[jay trotta]

OK, have herd enough bout this "Supply & Demand" crappola

for the last 6 months, business has been slow for everyone; (Lenders) nows the time to trickle out some extra work, but lower the Fee so they get acustom to less, now let out even more work to pressure the volume and keep the fee's low, add in some some stips to fustrate them, so they won't have time to complain and throw more work at them so they don't have time to think.

this is the same scenerio that has taken place over the past 20 years; it is Lender pressure disguised as typical work. So lemme ask all you slick binez folk, when Lenders advertise; No Fee / No Points / No Closing Costs - how do you think they make up that dollar volume Loss ??? Remember the big push for "paperless" work.....ROFL

 

[SANDY]

What it sounds like to me, however, is that you want to be hired as an "apprasiser" but not have to take the responsibility that comes with performing an appraisal. I see no benefit in this for anyone without a shop of low-payed "appraisers" needing volume to get by. That is the type of operation that would make money at this. And, that is the type of operation that the profession is better "of "without.

People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones!!!!

 

[Webbed Feet]

People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones!!!!

Sandy,

What in the world are you talking about? I probably couldn't pick Stone up let alone throw him!

By the way, could you learn how to make the quotes work correctly? They have to have "[ q u o t e]" at the begining of what you want to quote and then "[/ q u o t e]" at the end. Just take out the spaces, and don't forget that forward slash for the one placed at the end of the statement.

Webbed.

P.S. If there is a hint here that I am not taking this thread seriously, you're right. I'm not. Fast and cheap only created an illusion of meeting federal requirements and only an illusion of risk analysis. Regarding real estate valuations, an illusion is all it will ever provide. Once billions of dollars are lost, the euphoria of the illusion is going to wear off and people are going to be looking for someone to blame. Small matter of fact, they already are.

 

[Tim Hicks (Texas)]

I thought the slogan was "EDI or die."

 

[Stone]

What it sounds like to me, however, is that you want to be hired as an "apprasiser" but not have to take the responsibility that comes with performing an appraisal. I see no benefit in this for anyone without a shop of low-payed "appraisers" needing volume to get by. That is the type of operation that would make money at this. And, that is the type of operation that the profession is better "of "without.

People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones!!!!

Good one. 'Course I want nothing to do with performing the type of drivel you are begging to be able to do. Plus, as someone in a two-person LLC (who's partner is mostly retired) that has never had a trainee, I don't have a bunch of people to perform the garbage work you seem to be all about convincing us is great.

FTR - I wasn't trying to imply that you or your shop are a bunch of low-payed folks who get by on volume. I was not aiming those comments in your way. Besides, you have already assured us all that you make a lot of money and can take off whenever and for how long you want. Of course, that only makes your position on this a little more bizarre to me. I still cannot figure out why you covet this garbage.

And, no, as Webbed says, you likely couldn't throw me too far. The years sitting in front of a computer at a home office have taken their toll on my size and, despite fairly regular excersize, I ain't exactly thin. :new_smile-l:

 

[Brad Ellis]

Mike,

(and with apologies to Timothy, but the point is totally germane here)

Certainly, we can turn down those orders but who among us could always afford to turn down work? This is especially true if you are just starting out and trying to build a practice

I do not understand what you are suggesting here. It sure seems to me from these words that you are implying that it might be OK to accept the crappy assignments and cave in to the pressure because "...who among us can always afford to turn down work?"

Frankly, that is simply an unacceptable position, in my view.

It brings to mind the old joke about the young woman at a cocktail party who gets asked by a cad if she will sleep with him for a million dollars. After thinking it over she says yes, so he then asks if she would sleep with him for five dollars. OF COURSE NOT, SHE REPLIES- WHAT KING OF A GIRL DO YOU THINK I AM?

He responds, I thought we had established that- now we are just haggling over the price.

The point here, of course, is that the reasons an appraiser would "cave in" are simply irrelevant. To do so is to prostitute oneself. Is it understandable? Sure- everyone needs to put food on their tables. Is it therefore acceptable? Absolutely not.

And my standing as a salaried person in the evil, heartless, outrageous portion of the industry is irrelevant. I spent over 20 years in private practice before this area. I never had a problem saying no.

But, among the profession in general these sort of "cave ins" are one of the reasons the evil heartless folks so desperately seek alternate methods- because they know that there are simply too many who DO cave in to view the work products of all of the profession as reliable enough.

They must first be convinced that that these aggregate workproducts are not misleading, unethical, and geared towards predetermined results.

So, if you are faced with the options of paying $350 for something that has (just picking numbers here) say a 50/50 chance of being free from intentional misrep, unintentional errors, and unreliability from other factors (like a true lack of adequate data), or the other option of paying 1/2 to 1/10 of that same fee for a product like a BPO, or AVM, or desktop- not that this is any automatic solution either- which would you choose?

You already know that answer because you are seeing virtually all the clients gravitate towards the less expensive options. And it has been going on for some time now and will continue. And, if you add to that by having everyone decline the less than full inspected appraisal work on a 1004 (or other appropriate form) indicating extreme inflexibiity, it will ultimately result in the client base abandoning the traditional products altogether.

The secondary market has already essentially abandoned appraisals in favor of BPOs and AVMs and the occasional desktop for most purposes other than loan origination. Freddie tested their AVM against appraisals and reported it worked for them as well as the appraisals. Fannie no longer gets appraisals for loss mitigation work. Wall St. long ago stopped using appraisals for most portfolio valuations.

Six years ago I adopted a bump logic program for localized reviews- essentially I gave the appraisal report to a trusted local appraiser (yes- there ARE those of us who still believe) and just told them to take it as far as necessary to get me the truth. Start at your desk- if you need to go out there to drive by just do it. If you need interior access, call me and I'll arrange it. What happened? It got cancelled. It got cancelled because the folks who approved it found that they did not trust our trusted folks to not elevate every assignment to the full highest fee scope of work.

The fact that these folks did NOT scam the sytem is actually secondary- the belief was that the appraiser was so intransigent that they would angle for the higher fee assignment every time. Unfortunately, those beliefs were based upn all of their own experiences with appraisers. This stuff does not just fall out of the sky.

So our OP does have this right. Appraisers must adapt to varying scopes of work or perish. And I think it far far better to embrace the change and find ways to honorably earn a living than to just cave in to the demands of some broker who cares nothing at all about anything but his commission.

Brad

 

[TC]

I think the appraisers that are "caving in" or "hitting the number" don't see it that way. They merely see it as business as usual.

TC

 

[JSmith43]

Six years ago I adopted a bump logic program for localized reviews- essentially I gave the appraisal report to a trusted local appraiser (yes- there ARE those of us who still believe) and just told them to take it as far as necessary to get me the truth. Start at your desk- if you need to go out there to drive by just do it. If you need interior access, call me and I'll arrange it. What happened? It got cancelled. It got cancelled because the folks who approved it found that they did not trust our trusted folks to not elevate every assignment to the full highest fee scope of work.

That's too bad. I like the arrangement in your experiment with flexibility and trust.

I hate to stay on point, but back to the T11 licensing scheme. With it, the advantage of developing a relationship based upon trust, upon appreciation of ethics, performance and technical talent got short circuited. It took quite a bit of work pre T11 to develop a good long term client relationship.

That was a fair barrier to entry, which at times, constricted supply, but was more stable in the long term. The development of the secondary market and nationally branded minimum due diligence requirements, hand in hand, helped to undermine careful relationships built on trust.

And, the public trust is to be enhanced as a result? Only if they don't know the full story and the trust is built upon the illusion that the current paradigm of licensing and regulation is a working wonder, if only one or two more regulations were added to the matrix.

OP has a point. Brad's post above is as close to proof positive as this thread could hope to achieve.

Of course the whole market is down, and, yes, it was easier to batch process replacements under the licensing scheme.....updated just a bit too little too late, to help on that matter, as the politically astute insider should expect.

 

[ddnma]

Mike,

But, among the profession in general these sort of "cave ins" are one of the reasons the evil heartless folks so desperately seek alternate methods- because they know that there are simply too many who DO cave in to view the work products of all of the profession as reliable enough.

They must first be convinced that that these aggregate workproducts are not misleading, unethical, and geared towards predetermined results.

So, if you are faced with the options of paying $350 for something that has (just picking numbers here) say a 50/50 chance of being free from intentional misrep, unintentional errors, and unreliability from other factors (like a true lack of adequate data), or the other option of paying 1/2 to 1/10 of that same fee for a product like a BPO, or AVM, or desktop- not that this is any automatic solution either- which would you choose?

Brad

Brad- it is not only the predetermined results, what about the appraisals you see on the default and end that are through AMC's- how many of those appraisals are accurate? Like I have been saying for some time now- the users of appraisals just do not see the value in most appraisals.