Anyone Doing Commercial Work With Lres?

[Terrel L. Shields]

Making contact with the borrower within 24 hours isn't an unreasonable request -

Why? If I am running 4 weeks out, why would I want to inspect 3 weeks before I can start on it?

 

[Michigan CG]

Making contact with the borrower within 24 hours isn't an unreasonable request - it's our internal standard. I've seen several bank clients include this in their RFPs as well. It's good client service.

They wanted the inspection scheduled within 24 hours. I have no problem calling the borrower within 24 hours but setting an inspection date when the TAT is four weeks is not reasonable.

It is like the residential market. AMC sends order over and wants to know the next day when the inspection is scheduled. Residential I am out almost three weeks and am certainly not going to commit to a certain date within 24 hours. There is a reason we are that far out and it is because we are very busy. Two weeks ago I scheduled six inspections in the same area. The inspections included four houses, a 200-acre farm and a vacant 10-acre parcel. For every order it is not possible to do in 24 hours as I need to maximize my productivity. The agreed TAT is 14-30 days on these assignments.

 

[PL1957]

Why? If I am running 4 weeks out, why would I want to inspect 3 weeks before I can start on it?

It's pretty rare that we have the "luxury" of working on one job at a time - usually we juggle 3-4-5 assignments with varying due dates all in varying stages of completion. Contacting the borrower and/or inspecting the property as soon as possible does a couple of things. First, it's good service making my client look good to the borrower by hiring someone who is responsive, and second, it helps me immediately identify issues with the assignment that aren't evident until after the inspection. If I can ask the difficult questions on day 3 or 4 of a 3 week delivery, there's a good chance they may get answered in time so that the process isn't delayed. If I wait until the last week, the question from the client to me is "why didn't you ask for this earlier?".

It all boils down to good client service.

 

[gregb]

The primary reason a lender wants an appraiser to call to set the inspection appointment is to lock the borrower in to that lender, to keep the borrower from straying to the competition. Some clients expect the appraiser to be part of the "sales team."

 

[Pittsburgh Pete]

" Anyone working with LRES or comments?
Thanks for the input."

Read slowly, Pete.

Read slowly yourself. Check dictionary for meaning of "if"??

 

[Gobears81]

We do work for commercial AMCs on a regular basis. They pay us our regular fee and the appraisals are reviewed by real live appraisers. Not sure what the problem is ...

I'm admittedly not huge on contacting right away-kind of like what Terrel said-if we are 4 weeks out, the borrowers don't usually like to schedule 2-3 weeks in advance and when I'm 4 weeks out, it is pretty tough to squeeze an appointment in 2 days from the acceptance date. With that said, I appreciate working for some of the commercial AMCs. There is a large percentage of banks that have reviewers typing up checklists grading the appraisal without talking to the appraiser about it. I remember getting a report sent back and they sent the scanned in checklist with it-probably didn't intend for me to see it. They graded my appraisal as "average", due to the comps being somewhat dated and having large adjustments. At the end of the day, we can be at the whim of the market and the best comps just might not be that recent or requiring gross adjustments of less than 10%. Sure, I feel like the appraiser of the year when I have an abundance of great comps that are all less than a year old and mesh together perfectly without significant adjustments, but as long as we are doing our best to stay on top of being aware of sales and rentals that have taken place, the appraisal can't be graded poorly solely because of the lack of good comps IMHO. If I do qualitative adjustments, some clients might view the appraisal as garbage, but if I make 20% effective age adjustments, it might be regarded as such anyways. But, if I "minimize" the adjustment to less than what the market is actually suggesting to keep my review score up, then I'm effectively putting out a misleading appraisal. What bothers me is that many reviewers work in relative anonymity, while those that do call to discuss any issues, the vast majority of the time, they find that there is a valid reason for doing something in a certain manner and I find that most reviewers agree with my methodology after discussing. Such is life with being a commercial appraiser in smaller markets sometimes.

Anyways, one of the things that I appreciate with commercial AMCs is that if they have a problem with your report, they will at least call you on it. Some appraisers cringe at the pickier commercial reviewers, but I respect that they are not only reading the entire report, but thinking it through. I remember doing a report for a national bank and the reviewer called up saying that he thought of something about my report at 2 am. Yes, he was extremely particular, but you have to respect that he cares about his job that much.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

Commercial reviewers tend to be far more professional than gotcha reviewers of homes. They usually point out mistakes and allow you to correct those and explain any inconsistency. That is the best use of review, not to substitute the reviewers opinion, rather to reinforce the credibility of the report.

 

[Michael S]

I had an AMC contact me about a month ago asking for a bid on a small industrial property. I had just done a similar property a few blocks away so I sent them a bid. I was going to be gone for two weeks of annual training so I let them know another appraiser in my office would probably handle it. They came back a day or two later asking for a quote for a shorter turn time which I provided. Fast forward a couple of weeks and now they're asking for a sample appraisal, qualifications, and for me to register on their website. Apparently the request wasn't too urgent. I went ahead and registered and they had a page asking what kind of reports I could provide and there was about 50+ forms that I didn't recognize. I ended up checking "vacant land" and one other as they didn't have anything for commercial properties. They also asked for an estimate of how many appraisal I had completed of various property types. One category was properties over $2 million which would be a large chunk of what I do although I'm sure their application was geared towards residential properties. Guess I'll see if they still want to engage me now that I sent over that information and filled out their application.

 

[PL1957]

Commercial reviewers tend to be far more professional than gotcha reviewers of homes. They usually point out mistakes and allow you to correct those and explain any inconsistency. That is the best use of review, not to substitute the reviewers opinion, rather to reinforce the credibility of the report.

Back in my ornery days, before I started being nice to people, I would tell reviewers to feel free to make any changes that they wanted to my report. They would insist that they couldn't make changes, that I had to make them. I'd ask why, and they say it was because I was the appraiser. I'd ask them to repeat that, and they would. I'd ask them to repeat it again, and they would finally start to get my point - I was the appraiser, not them. Of course, I'd only do that to clients I didn't mind losing.

 

[NachoPerito]

I would have to agree with PL1957, I contact the borrower sometimes the same day as the award - helps to get in front of scope.

I try to contact property owners within 5 days of the engagement, but maybe I should change my ways because I get clients emailing me to call and inspect the property because the loan officer and owner were hassling them.

I have gotten on a couple AMC lists who say they do commercial work. I have never got a commercial order from them, but I get the residential requests often because they don't realize that I am only commercial. I have to tell them over and over 'sorry I don't do residential, only commercial. have a nice day'