Appraisal: Incompetence/Recourse

[Pamela Crowley (Florida)]

I KNOW of at least 3 long time appraisers in my area that put out exceptionally bad work. The cheap AMCs and low life mortgage brokers love them. They also make more money than I do. They are only blackballed from the lenders with the highest ethics.

 

[Dee Dee]

Leart3,
I've heard that it is not uncommon for some lenders to have relatives or personal friends who do the appraisals. In spite of the fact that the appraiser should disclose if there is any personal bias in the lender/homeowner/appraiser relationship, unless someone reports the discrepency it is doubtful that anyone will ever know the difference.

 

[Damon Pedersen]

Question I have..

Is your home a custom built manufactured home? Maybe that is why the appraiser used the comparables he/she did????

Also, what is the purpose of this post? If you are that upset about it still I would recommend to send copies of the appraisal to the state in which you live if the appraisal was completed within the past five years.

Dazed and Confused,
Damon

 

[Leon Stewart]

Dee Dee:

Who is to decide whether the person filing the Complaint has made a correct evaluation? Take the creater of this thread who admits he's not even an appraiser, and after seeing one or two Appraisal Reports in his lifetime, decides that he can correct the errors of the Licensee.

That's similar to a non-lawyer defending himself in Court and telling the Judge what the proper Legal Procedures are. A similar situation is currently taking place in the Court in my area.

This Appraisal Business is gotten so out of wack that anybody can file a complaint against anyone without any justification whatsoever.

leart3

 

[Paul Ness MAI]

atc services,

Welcome to the Appraiser's Forum, where the almighty appraiser can do no wrong (and I R 1) and where 'professionals' preach that incompetence should be rewarded by payment of double fees. Haven't any of you refused to pay someone for shoddy work?

If an appraisal is not completed in accordance with the engagement (i.e. USPAP compliant), then the appraiser should not get paid until/unless it is corrected because he/she has not fulfilled his/her contractual responsibilities.

Assuming this appraisal was as bad as it was described (and some things on an informal internet forum must be taken as a given for discussion purposes - this is not a court of law), I am amazed that there are appraisers here who appear to be defending this appraiser's apparent incompetence....and some wonder why we have had such a tough time rising to the level of a "profession" after 70 years.

 

[Dee Dee]

leart3,

Again, the homeowner stated in their original post that the LENDER rejected the first report...it wasn't the HOMEOWNER who decided to do so, they merely agreed with the lender.
The point is, should the homeowner then be responsible for paying for the report, in spite of it being rejected by the lender? At the very least the homeowner should have been informed that this would be the case, BEFORE the second appraisal was performed.

I also take issue with your assumption that the homeowner is
automatically ignorant of their own neighborhood simply because they don't hold an appraisal license. Without even seeing the report it would be a no-brainer, impossible to believe that there were no other modular or stick built homes that could have somehow been added to the report to support the value estimate that the original appraisal came in at.

How about some more opinions here, from the appraisers who work in remote areas. If you had a stick-built (modular or not) subject, wouldn't you find at least ONE comp that was similar in construction type, regardless of how far away it was? Wouldn't you do anything to avoid having line adjustments all the way across the page for inferior (or superior) construction type because it would raise red flags? Even if adjustments are made across the board, what evidence is there in the report to justify the amount of adjustment chosen? None whatsoever. With no paired sales to be analyzed, it would simply be speculation on the part of the appraiser, without a shred of data to back it up.
Let's look at another angle. What if this appraiser made no adjustments for the difference between a mobile home and a stick built (modular or not). What would their argument be for no adjustment? There would be no evidence in the report that would support it, though most of us know full well that there is probably a difference. If not, then show the comps that will prove it! Big deal if the appraiser has to drive further to make his case...that's his/her job!
I am convinced that the first report was trash. Neither the lender or homeowner has to tell me that...it's evident all by itself without even seeing it. If there were no other comps available then the appraiser would not have been able to do the second report (minus the mobile homes) so that isn't even an argument. I'll bet you anything that had the appraiser used those (probably closer) mobile home comps, along with at least two of the stick-builts used in the second report, there would have been plenty of data to reach a more accurate value estimate the first time around. The homeowner would have paid for one appraisal and that would have been the end of it.

 

[Austin]

Paul: How can an appraiser make a 20% error in the GLA estimate, use the wrong comp classification, submit a sloppy report, mistake the location from being rural to urban, ignore all of the big dollar extras, miss the hvac system, and come up with the right answer? Listen to some of what this person said in his original post: My house is custom built, but it has no back door. Then when the second appraisal made the number, the lender refused to accept it and wanted a field review. Hello! Then the expert reporting all this also found numerous errors in the lenders closing statement. Then you and others want to take the facts of this case as he presented them and trash the appraiser?

 

[Dee Dee]

atc,
How about you just give us your address, all of us debating this will meet there, we'll do an appraisal of it and then whoever loses has to buy the beer. :lol: Juuuust kidding!

 

[Terry Russell]

To all recent posts on this topic.

My home is located at the headwaters of the Missouri River. It is in a development that grew out of a !8,000 acre ranch. Fair-sized for Montana, Ted Turner has a ranch about 50 miles from here. Same county, it is 135,000 acres.
The ranch was divided up into 10 and 20 acre tracts. About a 1000 lots all together. Permenent residents for the entire development is about 130.
On the URAR in the neighborhood description the designation was
URBAN X < that is a checkmark, it was not a typo, how do I know? I asked the underwriter. The reason stated was the lender would be more flexible KNOWING the home was situated in an urban area. The neighborhood description then stated the home was in the town of Clarkston. The "settlement of Clarkston died 70 years ago. There is no town. There are no schools, no stores natta. The nearest town is 19 miles away on secondary gravel roads.
So, I suppose when the lender, not the UW, viewed the report and say that the only recent sales were 3 mobile homes in this metropolis, they may have stopped and thought Gee that's odd, you would think there would be at least four mobile home sales in this Urban town of Clarkston. And come to think of it, we informed the underwriter not to use mobile homes. But of course the appraiser did not err. Nor could the underwriter. So that leaves the probing, poking into everbody's business, thinks he's an expert with no back door at fault. And some nerve this guy has questioning the appraisal report. Who does he think he is, the guy paying for all this crap? Well, we will give him one more chance, we will let the holy appraiser include comps within a 30 mile radius. That should shut up that whining homeowner.
Dang, there is only 2 decent comps in 2800 square miles. Time for a field review!

You all can beat this to pieces, you don't seem to have much else to do. I, on the other hand, have a lot to do. I have acquired some really good advice from a few of the replies that are easily discernable from the disenchanted. Thanks to those few. And thanks to the others for the presumptious conclusion for which you have no answer.
And Austin, when my home was built, the owner-builder took extreme care in the placement of the improvements. That included berming the home into a the side of a hill. And the view from here is great. Terry

 

[Austin]

Atc: The more you say the more I am convinced that your problem is that you think you know more than everybody else and you are the one causing all of this misunderstanding. For example: Your tirade on the town of Clarkson not existing. Well I live in the county and my mailing address is Blairs. There is no town, city, or anything physically located that you can put your finger on and call it Blairs. There is a Blairs Post office but Blairs is just a postal zone, as most likely is Clarkson in your case.
Now as to urban vs. suburban: I live in the largest county in Virginia. Our county is larger than the state of RI. You have to go about 40 miles north of the southern part of the county before I would call it rural. The reason is the development pattern here is for farmers to sell their farm in lots and tracts. 90% of the county is developed in this manner and this is suburban in this market. The distance has nothing to do with being suburban. I flew to Orlando, FL,, last year and the whole state of Florida I saw was suburban. There are subdivisions everywhere. You live in a subdivision of 1,000 lots in your own words and want to call it rural? What do you call rural? Given the development pattern as you describe it, in a fairly new subdivision of acreage tracts in an area like Montana, it does not surprise me that there are few recent sales. For the last 8 years at least in this county we have had about 350 doublewide new homes sold. You can’t find a resale of doublewides. If you find 3 you are doing good. I would think that acreage tracts in Montana would attract retirees or people looking to get away from it all.
Again, the big gap in your story is that you say the appraiser came back the first time with a number that you expected but not big enough to make the deal. Why did you expect that number? Then you take him apart on not using the correct data but can’t seem to explain how all of this bad data yielded the correct answer in your own words. You are like the solder marching with his company and said: “Look! I am the only one in step.” I have been in this business over 25 years and I don’t know it all yet, but you seem to know it all and haven’t even started yet. The appraisers are stupid, the bankers are crooks, nobody can understand your problem, etc.