Appraising is like a minimum wage job.

[Vermonter]

YOU are making it a minimum wage job! Why are you driving 35 miles armed with only a subject address?
I do all of my data collection before the car leaves the garage. You have an address and if a purchase, an MLS listing of the subject. You have everything you need to pull comps. Pull a lot so if the inspection reveals something you didn’t know beforehand, you have a variety of comps to choose from. Something really odd-ball? Bring a tablet so you have access to the MLS in the field.

Bottom line, there really is no reason why you should be making 2 trips, one for inspection and one for taking comp pictures. There you just tripled your hourly income. Your welcome.

While I agree with the intent of your comment on preparation and efficiency, the highlighted are urban/suburban tactics that would not help in most of the rural areas I work.

 

[JLuther]

Today I woke up at 7 am in order to take some comp photos for a rural FHA order from earlier this week. I left my house at 8 am. This assignment was rural and 35 miles away from my house. The comps were directly 3-4 miles away in each direction, north, south, east and west. After stumbling around dirt roads for 2 hours, I finally got the comp photos that I needed. It took me another hour to get back to my office. At this point it was already 11:30. I went to lunch and had another inspection at 2pm. The owner showed up 15 minutes late and this was a complex assignment on a lake. It took me about an hour at the property to get all the info I needed including measuring the property. By the time I got back to the office it was already 4 pm and I pulled comps. After getting stuck in the weeds and looking around the MLS for something similar it was already 5:30 pm. Since its Friday before memorial day I said screw it, ill finish this on Tuesday. I spent all day today working without being able to bill anything new. Appraising is a minimum wage job.

And then let me guess miraculously the lender called you and said they were canceling that order and wanted to know what your trip fee was? Lol.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

Never happened to me.

So you've never found a subject to not be what it appears to be in the public records and/or MLS? Interesting.

that would not help in most of the rural areas I work.

Me too... accessing the MLS mobile is often a hair shirt job here. In the more remote rural areas I am in, I often do not have good cell service to access the hotspot. And in the deeper hollows fogedaboudit. Go find a high hill.

 

[Vermonter]

Go find a high hill.

My MLS is so slow it takes an eternity to load a page with my office gigabit service. I don't even bother on mobile

 

[J Grant]

Appraising per hour can pay a pretty good "wage" - the problem is the unsteadiness of the work - a 16-month busy cycle followed by a 14-month slow cycle that wipes out all the savings one accumulated during the busy cycle. At the end,, many appraisers don;t have much to show for it - not as much as moderate pay govt or teacher or other jobs that make less flash money when busy, but the salary is steady and increases over time, and the field offers benefits and health care and a retirement pension.

 

[Louis Hemmi]

Today I woke up at 7 am in order to take some comp photos for a rural FHA order from earlier this week. I left my house at 8 am. This assignment was rural and 35 miles away from my house. The comps were directly 3-4 miles away in each direction, north, south, east and west. After stumbling around dirt roads for 2 hours, I finally got the comp photos that I needed. It took me another hour to get back to my office. At this point it was already 11:30. I went to lunch and had another inspection at 2pm. The owner showed up 15 minutes late and this was a complex assignment on a lake. It took me about an hour at the property to get all the info I needed including measuring the property. By the time I got back to the office it was already 4 pm and I pulled comps. After getting stuck in the weeds and looking around the MLS for something similar it was already 5:30 pm. Since its Friday before memorial day I said screw it, ill finish this on Tuesday. I spent all day today working without being able to bill anything new. Appraising is a minimum wage job.

I thank you for expressing the same frustrations that I have. It seems that whenever anything is wrong or unexpected it lengthens the amount of time I have to spend without compensation. Two trips happen far too often and long distances make jobs simply unprofitable.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

Two trips happen far too often and long distances make jobs simply unprofitable.

The only reason it is that way is that most lenders think every assignment - whether in Cookiecutterville or the boonies - is a simple 4-hour job. Therefore, they won't assign these jobs with an adequate fee to justify the additional hours. I am lucky enough to where I dictate the fee, not vice versa. I get paid for the driving time or I don't do the job. If I have to drive an extra 2 hours, I want an extra 2-hour compensation. And I get it.

 

[Vermonter]

Two trips happen far too often and long distances make jobs simply unprofitable.

If that's the case it should be factored into your fees.

 

[RCA]

Today I woke up at 7 am in order to take some comp photos for a rural FHA order from earlier this week. I left my house at 8 am. This assignment was rural and 35 miles away from my house. The comps were directly 3-4 miles away in each direction, north, south, east and west. After stumbling around dirt roads for 2 hours, I finally got the comp photos that I needed. It took me another hour to get back to my office. At this point it was already 11:30. I went to lunch and had another inspection at 2pm. The owner showed up 15 minutes late and this was a complex assignment on a lake. It took me about an hour at the property to get all the info I needed including measuring the property. By the time I got back to the office it was already 4 pm and I pulled comps. After getting stuck in the weeds and looking around the MLS for something similar it was already 5:30 pm. Since its Friday before memorial day I said screw it, ill finish this on Tuesday. I spent all day today working without being able to bill anything new. Appraising is a minimum wage job.

If you are the sort person who strives to do excellent work, you.could very well find appraisal much worse than a minimum paying job. To work as an appraiser and pay for the courses to get an AI designation, you need very good connections or already be pretty well off - or have a wife with a good job. Not surprisingly, many appraisers fail to get married or if they do, certainly seem to have substantial divorce rates. A so-called "good mentor" will likely take 60-75% of the fee.

An average software engineering grad is likely to get $80-$100K+ right out of college and will be given time to break into the working environment and learn what is needed at that pay. Even more experienced workers, especially contractors, have about 2-3 months to break in to a new corporate environment and learn the software system wile making often much higher pay.

-- And nowadays, they can easily work form home in some remote location - along the beautiful California Coast or in the Rockies or Cascades.

 

[J Grant]

For mortgage lending work, the lender quotes the borrower a fee and then can not deviate it - so the appraiser has to do the appraisal for that fee, whether rit takes 5 hours or 10 hours.

Unlike most RE professionals, appraisers can not charge on a sliding scale percent of the value/price and do not typically charge by the hour. While that can work in their favor on some assignments, overall, it does not work in their favor.