Bad Mentors

[Mike Garrett RAA]

Hi Steven.... Welcome to the forum! One of these days we will have lunch for Colorado Forumites. Probably will be in Castle Rock at the Old Stone Church. We did it last year and it was a blast. Patty, Ross, David, and Mike from the Springs. Dee Dee is from the mountains west of Denver. A couple of other Denver appraisers post occasionally too. Our founder, Wayne, also has family here so he gets to the area a couple of times a year.

Funny how all that book "learnin" gets shoved to the back burner when it comes to actually appraising! I usually tell my students..."learn everything and learn it well. Once you take your test you can forget most of it!".

 

[Lonny Hogan]

Kali,

Maybe you can relate to this story. I started working under a mentor two years ago who taught me how to appraise. He'd been in the business since the mid nineteen eighties. I listened to what he said absorbed it like a sponge and tried to learn as much as I could. After all, he was the expert and I was the cherry right? After about 3 months of working for him I began to seriously question much of the logic he purported as plain and simple truth. When I challenged him he giggled and remarked on how much I had to learn. But even at three months of experience I just couldn't believe that $10 per square foot living area adjustment was appropriate for every single appraisal we did. Didn't matter if it was 100,000 or 500,000 property. Over time I learned more and more that truly bothered me regardless of his experience and my lack of it. I knew I was working for an idiot.
After a year of working for him we had a falling out because the slave wages he was paying me were starting to wear thin. I was able to land an opportunity with another appraiser who also happened to be an investigator for the state on improper apprasials. It was like breaking in all over again because of all the bad habits I had to unlearn. I knew it was a good education but the learning curve was driving me nuts. This guy made made the word anal sound like the description of a lump. Turned out that it was the best thing that could've happened to me. Now after two years I believe I've got a competancy level that is in the upper class for my experience level and a heck of alot more confidence than I ever could've had before.

I still work with this second mentor, plus I've had the opportunity to work with a number of other review appraisers and such that have given me a broader scope of different appraisal techniques and perspectives out there. After two years I've picked the brains of many appraisers The key to gaining competancy is to work with lots of appraisers and to educate yourself in the material we are taught. You can then compare the education to the experiences you have to tell the good ones from the bad. Eventually you'll take the best you can learn from each of them and discrard the rest. Later down the road, maybe you'll pass it on to the next generation.

One of the neat things about this profession is that you are paid for your opinion. This means that at some time you need depend on your own experience and intelligence, weigh it against USPAP, and derive an opinion you can support. When another appraiser giggles and tells you you've got more to learn you can shake your head with the satisfaction of knowing where the brains in the room is. Its a great feeling when you get there. Sounds to me like your more than well on your way, too.

Using tools like this forum, asking question after question even if your 90% sure you already know the answer, and not caring if someone uses the question as an opportunity to treat you as if you were an incompetant child are keys to learning more faster. Take that on top of integrity and pride in the quality of your work and nothing can stop you.

 

[Pamela Crowley (Florida)]

Lonny,

Thank you!!! Excellent post!

 

[Restrain]

Just hang in there. You'll get it.

Mike's right. I've been doing this for 30 years. I have done market extractions in various market areas and now I use my mental file, double checking myself if something looks wrong. You are not going to be able to pair-sale EVERY adjustment. It would take so many sales to do the appropriate Multiple-regression analysis that the individual factors would outweigh the result. And you have to consider buyer/seller considerations which you don't know. So, look at the big items (site, size, garages, quality) and do the best you can on the small stuff (fireplaces, etc).

Builder costs gives you a good idea of their charges which gives you the top end for the additional fireplace, cost of distressed wood floors, etc. You can back down from there.

As to my trainees, I will toss reports back to them for a paired-sale analysis of the adjustments as a training exercise (when there's enough sales). However, that's becoming harder to do in this market as sales are way off. In this market, we're having to rely more and more on old data and historical adjustments. So, support your adjustments as best you can (we have observed through historical data that a 3 car garage contributes zzz more than a 2 car garage, etc).

Roger

 

[George Hatch]

It is very appropriate for an appraiser at any level to question everything. Trusting is okay, but also verify to make sure it applies to the situation at hand. When you sign on the dotted line, you are responsible for your own opinion and you shouldn't be forced to adopt anybody else's opinion. If a co-signing and supervisory appraiser is doing things you cannot reconcile with, there's nothing wrong with letting them single-sign it and then include the appropriate disclosures that you worked on the assignment. It shouldn't cause any problems.

For quantitative adjustments, I generally compare all my sales data against each other, including the sales I don't present in the report. Prior to making any adjustments, the data should represent be a general range in values that will narrow considerably as you sift through it and discard the ones that are less directly comparable. When you finally get down to your "best" comparables (as in, most similar, not highest value) the range should already be relatively tight depending on how similar they really are. By this time you should be getting a pretty good idea which elements are of effect on value within that market segment and where it's trending. There should be no one sale that makes or breaks an appraisal because if there is, there's a pretty good bet that that one sale doesn't represent the trend.

If there is no apparent support among your sales data for an adjustment, sometimes it's best to simply note the difference but otherwise leave the data alone. Better to do that than make an adjustment that you can't explain or support. I find this happens sometimes when comparing homes in some market segments with and without pools, for instance. Or four bedroom vs. three bedroom homes. Or properties with elevated lots and a minor view amenity vs. more level, but non-view sites. Of course, it's always best to find at least 3 of a kind when you're looking at homes with pools or 4th bedrooms or views, but sometimes you have to take what you can get and work with what you have.

If nothing else, you should also get into the habit of ranking your comparable sales in relation to your subject, both before and after any adjustments. Go for the demonstrated trend rather than the outliners and you almost can't go wrong.

 

[DB]

Kali,
I am also a trainee appraiser and have been to the schools and have close to 1000 hours of experience now. One thing I have learned by watching my CG and others that I have had the opportunity to work with is that experience is the key to this business. A good appraiser with years of experience in the same market can take one good look at a tax card and tell you in a flash whether or not it is a good sale or a bad sale. He may not be able to tell you why without some poking around, but he can tell you something isn't right at a glance. Experience also tells them the certain values pertaining to adjustments.
I have developed some spread sheets for Excel that allow me to input sales from a particular market and allow me find the annual percentage increase in value and can also be used for paired sale analysis. This is not the way that most appraisers do it, but I love working with Excel and can make it almost do the work for me.
When I first started training, I was looking for the "Golden Formula" that would give me the correct values. (A+B/C*D-E=Value sort of thing) What I discovered is that it does not exist. This is a business of variables, not constants. When you look at a guitar and you wonder why you can play like Tony Levin, it is because he knows where and when to use the formula (i.e. written music). All the notes are on there, you just have to put them in the right order and at the right time. Appraising is similar ..... but only in the sense that all the information is there, all you have to do is extract it and figure out how it applies to your subject and adjust accordingly.

I agree with everyone else here. If you know how to do the work, do it. If your supervisor changes it, then take your name off of it. When you don't have appraisals to do, do market studies. Save the information for later use. I am sure that a lot of the adjustments your supervisor makes that appear to you to be without basis, are in fact, based on numerous previous market studies that are stored in the old bean.

If you think it will help, I will be glad to send you some of my spreadsheets and you can plug in sales from your own area and file them away for future use.

I hope any of this helps ........... Take care! :yellowblack:

 

[Kate]

Pamela,

You say that the good appraisers don't take on trainees because in order to train them properly it's not financially reasonable. Little do you know that you have taken on a trainee, me. I have learned so much from you. And many others from this forum.

 

[CANative]

The bottom line of this thread seems to verify Mike's paraphrase of Mark Twain.

But I don't understand why Mike had to paraphrase when he probably new Twain personally. ;o)

 

[jeanwillick]

Took a continuing ed class many years ago ( I was still a trainee)--the instructor brought up the subject of the income approach and the fact that most of our reports don't address it and asked if anyone could tell him what the formula was. After a minute of silence by about 50 men in the class, I couldn't hold back and gave him the answer. This was the first time my eyes were opened to the fact that these "experienced" appraisers didn't know what was what. Also, in my old age, I have developed a new philosophy that you must always factor in the "incompetancy factor" when dealing with people that you may have considered knowledgeable, such as the car mechanic, tv repairman, lawyer, and many others that we used to look up to in our younger years. Be aware of the "incompetancy factor" and question everyone and it will save you a lot of grief.

 

[DB]

Jean,
This is just too ironic not to mention ................

1. I am a certified GM mechanic and ASE certified also.
2. I have a degree in electronics, including TV repair
3. I hold 6 certificates in welding.
4. My brother is a Doctor.
5. My mother is retired from a community college where she taught for 30 years.
6. My father is a retired insurance claims executive.
7. I have been a licensed insurance agent for almost 20 years.
8. My wife is in law school.
9. I used to own an auto parts and welding shop and still own a portable welding company.

So ............... any questions you have ................

Ask away!! :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: