J Grant
Elite Member
- Joined
- Dec 9, 2003
- Professional Status
- Certified Residential Appraiser
- State
- Florida
One of the problems I have from this, or or any of the wunderkind programs or solutions to make us "more efficient" is that their use erodes our fees. Every time appraisers turn more of their work over to automation or pre populating or AVM type programs, their fees tend to decline. Which makes sense- clients or Fanni/Freddie see appraisers importing data and results and canned comments, thus why should that command much of a fee? That is besides any credibility or reliability issues of any of these programs or any sinister theories about data mining or data stealing, ( which to me is not the main issue or any issue, since CL owns MLS and extensive data banks)
CL pays some of the lowest appraisal fees around which indicated their viewpoint. The less they can pay appraisers , the more they $ make on that end of the business since borrower fees are always higher. I believed from day one purchasing ALAMODE was a loss leader for them with the the real return gaining more leverage over the profession.
If CL can say to lenders or Fannie that the appraisers have an easy gig now since all they do is exchange pre populated comps with each other, it makes their case for lower C and R/ lower pay .
CL also employs staff appraisers, as many as they can use since it is much cheaper per report. So fee appraisers will laboriously vet comps and then turn them over to SmartExhange so CL's fee appraisers can churn out yet more volume. While we may or may not get to use "their " comps- even if we do, the trade off still leaves us at a disadvantage for reasons stated- plus any conscientious appraiser would verify/ vet the information anyway, wiping out time savings, while the skippies won't vet the info, gaining them an even bigger time advantage.
CL pays some of the lowest appraisal fees around which indicated their viewpoint. The less they can pay appraisers , the more they $ make on that end of the business since borrower fees are always higher. I believed from day one purchasing ALAMODE was a loss leader for them with the the real return gaining more leverage over the profession.
If CL can say to lenders or Fannie that the appraisers have an easy gig now since all they do is exchange pre populated comps with each other, it makes their case for lower C and R/ lower pay .
CL also employs staff appraisers, as many as they can use since it is much cheaper per report. So fee appraisers will laboriously vet comps and then turn them over to SmartExhange so CL's fee appraisers can churn out yet more volume. While we may or may not get to use "their " comps- even if we do, the trade off still leaves us at a disadvantage for reasons stated- plus any conscientious appraiser would verify/ vet the information anyway, wiping out time savings, while the skippies won't vet the info, gaining them an even bigger time advantage.
