Appraisal Institute's PAREA receives approval from the Appraiser Qualifications Board

[Tiffany Gibbons]

She's not alone in exploiting the system. Many state-board members use their positions to boost their careers. They show up at NAR, TAF, AI, and councils, but they don't care about appraisers. They just want to get ahead and make some bucks.

Heck, that's why they are "appointed" in the first place, because they have some sort of influence, political or otherwise.

 

[Deleted member 122624]

Heck, that's why they are "appointed" in the first place, because they have some sort of influence, political or otherwise.

Most organizations appoint or recruit their “Favorites” to higher positions. You don’t appoint those that go against the beliefs and the grain of others who have established things to allow someone else to tear them down.

Just look at AI,NAA, and others. It’s always the same group of people moving up into positions or those being groomed to take those positions due to the influence of the prior heads. You know. The good ole boys club.

 

[chad hampton]

AI being the worst example. When I heard their lobbyist and the mortgage brokers lobbyist both regurgitate the same lines about how they were in favor of hybrid appraisals several years ago, I knew that organization would never get a dollar from me. It’s tremendously offensive that they call themselves an appraiser advocacy organization.

 

[John Hassler]

Sure I would. We always had trainees (because we were always trying to grow the business), and if I still was operating a firm I would still have trainees - they would come and train with us because we would pay for all the education/training, just as we did for all our appraisers.

I would take on a trainee and train them in a hybrid way - using the traditional approach and augmenting that with having them get experience credits through PAREA as well. Even factoring in the cost of PAREA, that would reduce my overall training costs and allow a faster path to certification (we always took trainees down the certification path rather than licensed).

Many supervising appraisers have not created an environment that encourages people to stay on staff after they are certified. Long term success with trainees requires a business arrangement that is a win for both the company and the trainee - too many set up arrangements that incentivize folks to leave as soon as they get credentials rather than sticking around and helping grow company revenue. That is just training your future competition. I stayed with my first company for 14 years, mainly because they provided the economic incentive to do so. I replicated that environment when I spun off on my own. I had folks that worked as staff appraisers for me for over 20 years. My goal was to create a support system and pay structure that produced profit for the company while making it difficult for them to leave without taking a pay cut. That basically meant sacrificing short term profit for long term company growth. It also meant investing in support staff to handle administrative tasks so appraisers could focus solely on appraisal (rather than billing, scheduling, records retention, marketing, etc.)

With all due respect, the business model you just described was wiped out the advancement of AMCs with the death knell being the HVCC. I, too, had W-2 staff. I had a business logo. I branded my pre-email era reports by using heavy grey stock (that clients loved because it was easy to find the appraisal in the loan file). It those days appraisal orders came to my business and “I” decided who it the office performed the assignment.

But with the advancement of AMCs, I didn’t want to lose control of who did what in my office. I couldn’t see how to maximize labor efficiently as the AMC specified who in my office had to complete the assignment. If Employee A was a master of 2-4s and Employee B wasn’t, I couldn’t re-assign the order. Similarly, if two orders came in for properties along the coast I may have to send two separate appraisers. There would be no appraisal business. All I would be is a manager of AMC orders. So, like you, I left day to day appraising and there was one less supervisor to train the next generation.

 

[Tiffany Gibbons]

With all due respect, the business model you just described was wiped out the advancement of AMCs with the death knell being the HVCC. I, too, had W-2 staff. I had a business logo. I branded my pre-email era reports by using heavy grey stock (that clients loved because it was easy to find the appraisal in the loan file). It those days appraisal orders came to my business and “I” decided who it the office performed the assignment.

But with the advancement of AMCs, I didn’t want to lose control of who did what in my office. I couldn’t see how to maximize labor efficiently as the AMC specified who in my office had to complete the assignment. If Employee A was a master of 2-4s and Employee B wasn’t, I couldn’t re-assign the order. Similarly, if two orders came in for properties along the coast I may have to send two separate appraisers. There would be no appraisal business. All I would be is a manager of AMC orders. So, like you, I left day to day appraising and there was one less supervisor to train the next generation.

Exactly, this is the type of company I spent 15 years at, all the different appraisers had a geographic area they worked in for residential and 2 of us also did commercial work. When the phone calls from AMCs bothering the secretaries every hour on the hour and getting emails demanding how much longer became constant, I cut back to only doing my VA and ERC appraisals on residential work because I just could not work like that. It was too distracting. My boss paid us incentives to turn in work quickly, so the constant prodding was not necessary. Then "bidding" started with commercial work. Soon after, predatory lending practices crashed the economy here we go again with the same players in control of a new game they have rigged. And, of course, the Fed rate hikes (never mind the ridiculous rate cuts that got us here and inflated the housing market and all it props up, combined with a pandemic this time, for good measure). Yes, some of the best supervisors (my former boss was a great mentor and teacher) got out too, and the new schemes the GSEs and AMCs have going now are setting up for the crashing and insider trading all over again. It is like watching a car wreck and being powerless to stop the carnage. The fact that real licensed and experienced appraisers are even attempting this hybrid and desktop crap is just unreal, but I was amazed so many worked for AMCs back then. Plus, so many recent posts on the forum have been reviewers with questions showing they have no experience reviewing the work of other appraisers. Who exactly do we think is ordering all these reviews (for cheap) and why? To take out a few more residential appraisers and manifest that shortage of appraisers that PAREA is supposed to fix. This time there is a 3 pronged attack with the phony appraiser bias included to make sure they succeed, to be realized in time for when rates get cut. It's a long game and Lyle and Scott from Freddie stated that over a year ago on several "education provider" podcasts before this really all got going. I just can't wait to bail these idiots out again as a taxpayer. Robots won't be able to bail stupid Lenders and GSEs out of their engineered mess again. Even builders and auto makers learned from the last meltdown.

 

[sputnam]

Read the forum regularly and then make the case that less training is a good idea.

 

[DWiley]

With all due respect, the business model you just described was wiped out the advancement of AMCs with the death knell being the HVCC. I, too, had W-2 staff. I had a business logo. I branded my pre-email era reports by using heavy grey stock (that clients loved because it was easy to find the appraisal in the loan file). It those days appraisal orders came to my business and “I” decided who it the office performed the assignment.

But with the advancement of AMCs, I didn’t want to lose control of who did what in my office. I couldn’t see how to maximize labor efficiently as the AMC specified who in my office had to complete the assignment. If Employee A was a master of 2-4s and Employee B wasn’t, I couldn’t re-assign the order. Similarly, if two orders came in for properties along the coast I may have to send two separate appraisers. There would be no appraisal business. All I would be is a manager of AMC orders. So, like you, I left day to day appraising and there was one less supervisor to train the next generation.

I would say that I 100% agree that the adoption of the philosophy that an appraisal had to be assigned to a specific appraiser (rather than sent to a firm who could assign within that firm) played a big part in the demise of the smedium size firm. I have explained this issue to many over the years - in fact we just had an internal discussion about this very thing last week. At my old firm, we adopted to that by replacing such clients with clients who had no such requirements. We sought out local and regional lenders who were typically easier to work with as a firm. It could still be done (I know appraisers locally who still have smedium firms), but it is certainly a challenge.

I also agree that is came with the proliferation of AMCs - but, it was not due to the AMCs themselves; rather, it was driven by the way lenders audited selection of appraisers by AMCs. I saw this when I worked at a large AMC. Lenders would come in with random list of their loans and we would have to go through the logs and show them the logic for how the individual appraiser was selected from among all those eligible for the order. That included showing how many on the panel were in the coverage area, what their service and quality scores were, etc. The lenders simply did not allow assigning to a firm - the AMC had to select an individual appraiser. I spent a lot of time trying to get lenders to change their position but most did not want to change their policies because they knew that most appraisers did not work at firms, and they saw no need to change policies to accommodate firms.

 

[Non Sequitur]

Most boots on the ground appraisers have no idea how deep the business behind our business is. Plenty of people make their living off of appraisal regulation and education, and in the end that's the master they serve.

 

[Dale Floyd]

I would say that I 100% agree that the adoption of the philosophy that an appraisal had to be assigned to a specific appraiser (rather than sent to a firm who could assign within that firm) played a big part in the demise of the smedium size firm. I have explained this issue to many over the years - in fact we just had an internal discussion about this very thing last week. At my old firm, we adopted to that by replacing such clients with clients who had no such requirements. We sought out local and regional lenders who were typically easier to work with as a firm. It could still be done (I know appraisers locally who still have smedium firms), but it is certainly a challenge.

I also agree that is came with the proliferation of AMCs - but, it was not due to the AMCs themselves; rather, it was driven by the way lenders audited selection of appraisers by AMCs. I saw this when I worked at a large AMC. Lenders would come in with random list of their loans and we would have to go through the logs and show them the logic for how the individual appraiser was selected from among all those eligible for the order. That included showing how many on the panel were in the coverage area, what their service and quality scores were, etc. The lenders simply did not allow assigning to a firm - the AMC had to select an individual appraiser. I spent a lot of time trying to get lenders to change their position but most did not want to change their policies because they knew that most appraisers did not work at firms, and they saw no need to change policies to accommodate firms.

That's curious.

As I clearly stated in a couple of appraisal publications over the years, appraisal firms should be able to exist without interference - just like all other professions. Mine still does well in our area of the state thankfully, but it hasn't been because of an abundance of help from anybody.

It would have been helpful for FNMA and Freddie Mac to support the appraisal firm when rolling out their PDC philosophy. Instead of including the ability of appraisal firms to choose or train their own property data collectors, or perhaps encouraging the trainee model further, a whole new breed of interference by others has been inserted.

 

[ucbruin]

That's curious.

As I clearly stated in a couple of appraisal publications over the years, appraisal firms should be able to exist without interference - just like all other professions. Mine still does well in our area of the state thankfully, but it hasn't been because of an abundance of help from anybody.

It would have been helpful for FNMA and Freddie Mac to support the appraisal firm when rolling out their PDC philosophy. Instead of including the ability of appraisal firms to choose or train their own property data collectors, or perhaps encouraging the trainee model further, a whole new breed of interference by others has been inserted.

You and DWiley probably built and ran a responsible company....
But it's obvious to me (only from reading posts from forumites) that this is not the case for the majority of the appraisal industry....

In what industry does self policing actually work....