Curb appeal adjustment

[Fernando]

Qualitative analysis is lost on so many residential appraisers. The reconciliation is the place to provide the qualitative analysis.

Hope you're not referring to me as the many residential appraisers.
Quantitative speaks for itself but it can be confusing.
I reconcile how I came to my appraised value. Wish it was more of a range but that's another story.

 

[alebrewer]

Qualitative analysis is lost on so many residential appraisers. The reconciliation is the place to provide the qualitative analysis.

And here we go again dissing resi appraisers... you are so predictable.

 

[glenn walker]

And here we go again dissing resi appraisers... you are so predictable.

I don't think he is dissing residential appraisers as a whole but in general he is correct, it's unfortunate but many loan production appraisers, were trained and operate like form fillers and even the threads on the forum sometimes just want me to bang my head on the concrete. How about this question by a poster Does a Tesla in the driveway add value or curb appeal - WHAT !

 

[alebrewer]

I don't think he is dissing residential appraisers as a whole but in general he is correct, it's unfortunate but many loan production appraisers, were trained and operate like form fillers and even the threads on the forum sometimes just want me to bang my head on the concrete. How about this question by a poster Does a Tesla in the driveway add value or curb appeal - WHAT !

I've found that to often be the case for folks who perform residential appraisals - regardless of credential...

 

[glenn walker]

I've found that to often be the case for folks who perform residential appraisals - regardless of credential...

True-but residential appraisers often get emotionally involved with a property, I also noticed ( now I am in trouble ) who I worked with were fantastic on high end, custom and really nice properties but send them in to a ghetto or what we now call a neighborhood in transition , and they were constantly lower then the guys and nit picking things that are whet you expect to see on those homes---Karen- Thats paint on the alley fences and not graffiti and no you cant report the areas homicide rates and that there are 200 people on megans list and all within a 1/4 mile radius of the subject thats already baked into the cake. The best one was my review on a Beverly Hills Mansion- under street lights she had written Goose Necked Vapor --I am like no there electric but do you actually look up at the street lights ? She says yes some neighborhoods have very nice ones and others are ugly and plain. O' well- a hell of a good appraiser as long as the house was a cream puff -turn key or in a high end market but no FHA for her and no challenged neighborhoods because she always delivered us a nightmare.

 

[alebrewer]

but residential appraisers often get emotionally involved with a property

Huh?... how can you get emotionally attached when you're doing 10 a week?

 

[glenn walker]

Huh?... how can you get emotionally attached when you're doing 10 a week?

There are few appraisers on a forum doing 10 a week and when they get that busy they disappear until it slows down and then we see lots of threads being created. There are exceptions we have one guy who claims he does 50 to 60 a month but the truth is there is no way as a one man shop he can be doing that many and still posting every 45 minutes-he was one of the crazies back during the mortgage meltdown, and it was like a daily appraiser cage fight.

 

[Michigan CG]

And here we go again dissing resi appraisers... you are so predictable.

I am not dissing residential appraisers. Heck, basically I am a residential appraiser in that I appraise more houses than other property types.

You get to review a lot of residential reports. What percentage of them have a reconciliation that is canned and used for every single report? What percentage of the reports you read have a couple paragraphs of original thought in how they got to the final number?

Do you see commercial reports that do the same thing? I don't.

 

[alebrewer]

I am not dissing residential appraisers. Heck, basically I am a residential appraiser in that I appraise more houses than other property types.

You get to review a lot of residential reports. What percentage of them have a reconciliation that is canned and used for every single report? What percentage of the reports you read have a couple paragraphs of original thought in how they got to the final number?

Do you see commercial reports that do the same thing? I don't.

No doubt that residential 'form' appraisals have more canned commentary than narrative reports - residential or commercial. As I said, it seems to me it's more about what specialty someone practices than it is about their credential. If you write forms, residential OR general credential, you're probably more apt to cut corners. If you write narratives - residential OR general credential, you're probably more apt to write better reconciliations. Maybe if you moved away from the 'residential/commercial' paradigm, and looked at it from a 'form/narrative' paradigm?

 

[Rlong]

I somewhat reject the concept or term "Curb Appeal" as it infers ONLY from the street. I feel it is "antiquated" from a time when listings were "one page in a book" or at least a maximum of three or four grainy pictures. I think with the modern MLS (Zillow, et al) buyers are more cognizant that the "cover" does not always represent the book. I feel strongly you should just "stuff it in" Quality, Condition, Design, and explain.... like it or not FNMA wants it stuffed in those boxes; and it's not that hard once you decide on "metrics" in your head (amount of brick, number of corners, trim detail, whatever you use for your metrics.

NOW I throw in the "BS" term I use (but do not adjust per say) for higher end custom homes. "Overall Execution", although I still "stuff it in the boxes" I use this as a metric when selecting comps. making sure the subject is represented. If your one of the top in your market your going to get to the upper end of this. My foundation is likely different, having built almost exclusively custom homes as the craftsman in my 20's and higher end commercial until I was an appraiser, and try to visit all the high end homes (open houses) I can. My Son is currently managing several 20 - 25 million dollar builds on Lake Tahoe, so I go out there to see the nth degree in design and material (newsflash the material and craftsmanship is not really much better than the $1.5 - $3M homes, it's simply the LOCATION and "overall execution". It can still be "stuffed in" the XML form boxes for our Robot Overlords!

Bob in CO