DO SOMETHING! - repost

[Pamela Crowley (Florida)]

This was on the old board and I've decided to post it again here on the new forum. Can't let the 'regulars' here forget and the 'newbie' forumites do need to get involved!

Sending emails to various legislators and media persons is a very good thing to do. We definitely need to push for something to be done about the mess that is current and pending. All appraisers that want this situation to be corrected need to DO SOMETHING. ALL here need to send articles and personal emails to various powers that might eventually take notice.

I've come up with an idea for the members of this forum and hope there is a way it can be implemented and that all will participate. We can talk and complain all we want here but, until we make a commitment to act, we are going nowhere fast.

My suggestion is that we all make a commitment to attend our respective State Appraisal Board meetings. Bring copies of any and all articles, posts, emails that we are sending to the media and legislators and make sure all in attendance get those copies. Bring copies of all of the unethical, incompetent and fraudulent reports you can get your hands on and ask the Boards what they are going to do about them.

I would like to see a section in this forum showing each state where members sign up. making this commitment to attend their board meetings.

Now here's the real commitment I would like to see you all make:

Offer to do some FREE Standard 3 Compliant Full Field Reviews for your State Board.

I'm going to ask Wayne if he can set up a section for us to sign up in by State and include how many reviews you are willing to do.

I'll start by stating here and now that I plan to attend all Florida State Appraisal Board meetings in 2002. I commit myself to do up to 6 Reviews free of charge in 2002 for appraisals under investigation.

I also pledge that if I can get my hands on any unethical, incompetent and/or fraudulent reports I WILL send them in with a complaint to my state board and include a Standard 3 Review spelling out the violations with all documentation. I will be thoughtful and very careful that those reports really are something that needs to be reprimanded.

No more whining. DO SOMETHING!

And PLEASE, DO NOT turn this into a witch-hunt. Make sure that you are doing this correctly and without bias.

If someone can come up with something better, please let me know.

Let the verbal games begin.

 

[Head Surfer]

Pamela,

Excellent, post I made it "sticky" so it'll stay at the top and will give everyone ideas of what they can do to help improve the profession!

 

[Jo Ann Meyer Stratton]

Wayne:

Friday several messages with linkes were posted regarding Fannie Mae's Announcement 02-02.

Could stickys be attached to one or both of those messages with the links? That announcement is very important and needs to be brought out to every appraiser, lender, realtor, etc in the country. In my personal opinion, I think the petition has accomplished something.

 

[Head Surfer]

Wayne:

Friday several messages with linkes were posted regarding Fannie Mae's Announcement 02-02.

Could stickys be attached to one or both of those messages with the links? That announcement is very important and needs to be brought out to every appraiser, lender, realtor, etc in the country. In my personal opinion, I think the petition has accomplished something.

Jo Ann,

That post was in the General category and I don't intend to make them sticky because of the traffic that forum gets. Do you think the post in question would be more appropriate for another forum? If so, which one, and I will look at it and consider moving it and making it sticky.

 

[Jo Ann Meyer Stratton]

Maybe this one? Or could you have a "blurb" that would be very noticable when someone comes to the forum? Maybe a link--like at the top of the forum? And every appraiser that reads the announcement, needs to pass it on to as many appraisers, lenders, realtors as possible!

It is just someway this info has to get out!! I understand that Fannie Mae has already started to refer reports to the Arizona State Appraisal Board. So appraisers need to start to "straighten up and fly right", which they should have been doing all along anyway. If you don't want to get a speeding ticket, don't exceed the speed limit! So any appraiser, and I am sure all the posters to this forum fall into this category, that has been doing everything right doesn't have to worry about this new announcement. But the petition was started and receiving so much publicity because there are a lot of appraisers out there that have not been "flying right". This announcement gives us some influence with those fly by night lenders--and appraisers.

 

[Head Surfer]

It is getting plenty of attention right now where it is. I may consider moving it somewhere later, or perhaps adding FNMA to the HUD/FHA and VA forum and moving it there.

 

[Pamela Crowley (Florida)]

Wayne,

Thanks for the 'Sticky' and keeping this at the top. I debated about where to put it and decided to put it in general and leave the decision up to you. Really like what you did!

Pam

 

[Kim Grant Matarazzo]

Pamela: I read some of your posts from time to time on the old board but this one was really worth responding to. First let me give you a little background so you won't label me "newbie" I have been appraising real property in California for mortgage loan purposes since 1985.

I understand the desire to be politcally active to make effective changes when you see a wrong but it's simply not realistic in this industry. In the old days it could get you a lot less work! That has changed which is a great improvement. In fact, much has changed in the last 10 years for the appraiser and most of it has been forward progress.

I suggest that whining about the "injustices" or "low quality" committed by other appraiser's is simply whining and not very effective. Professional appraisers will not be bothered to give "free" reviews to better their profession, rather they strive to be the best at what they do. Honestly, who has time to write all those letters and attend all those meetings when your clients are burying you in their work. Being an advocate for professionalism is a good thing but doing the soap box drama is not. Offering to do "free" review to weed out the bad is a vindictive activity that most sucessful appraisers have no time for.

Trying to organize appraisers as a group is nearly impossible. There is too much ego to go around and I have never, in all my years, witnessed a group of appraisers that acutally agreed on anything. This business is based on your PERSONAL opinion. Being opinionated is a good quality for appraisal but not very conducive to an organized industry.

I am aware of problems in my profession, I experience them daily but my response is to keep aware of the changes, to be deligent in my work, to volunteer to teach appraisal courses (I say volunteer because at the pay rate for instructors it's almost like doing charity), to be encouraging to people seeking a career in this industry, to do my part in training at least one appraiser a year, hands on. I am working towards obtaining a certification as a national USPAP instructor and hope to instruct in that area also. I believe these are the types of activities that appraiser's who really wish to improve our industry should be involved in.

The gene pool in appraisal will never be improved without training, something our industry is severly lacking.

--Kim

 

[Don Clark]

Kim:

And what is that dark cloud over your head :?:

Evil survives when good men/women do nothing :!:

I agree with Pamela 100% in all her ideas. There are those who take from our profession and never give anything back. They will continue in this journey with negative ideas, comments, and laugh at those who do care, are willing to give something back, and have enough gumption to get off their dead butts and do something. Using your theory, we would be driving a team of horses to do an appraisal as the auto would never have been invented, the typewrite and now the computer would have been labeled a "pipe dream", and progress would be a dirty word. Am I being harsh? Damn right I am. It does mean something to attend state Appraisal Board meetings. A few years agon I attended one such meeting and found our 9 member board was a joke. We had 4 appraisers on a 9 member board. In addition to 4 appraisers we had an educational member who could only talk about making everyone feel good(liberal), 1 citizen member who was a wily old codger, and 3 members of financial institutions. That day there were 4 appraisers, the educational member, and the citizen member. I asked where the 3 members of financial institutions were :?: I was told that they almost never attended board meetings. There was also a discussion that day that the board was trying to get the requirement that appraisers use a seal like a notary or surveyors seal removed from the regulations but that a change in the law would be required and the board could not act as it's own advocate in doing so. When i got back home I wrote my local delegate and asked him to sponsor legislation that would change the composition of the board and add more appraisers to the board, and change the law to allow removal of the requirement that a seal be used. I received a call, and later a letter where he had made inquiry of the state agency that had oversight of the appraisal board. He basically said he would be willing to sponsor the legislation if he had some indication from other that this was necessary, and added that most boards, once composed, were usually reluctant to change. I followed up as best I could over time. During the next session of the General Assembly in Virginia I received a call from his aid and a Fax that introduced legislation that would take 2 members of financial institutions off the board, add 2 additional appraisers, change the law so that appraisers would no longer be required to use the seal. My delegate indicated he had found an ally in another delegate that had been contacted by the Appraisal Section of the Virginia Association of Realtors. In June of the following year both measures were signed into law. We now have appraisers on the board, 1 member of a financial instution, a new education member, and a new citizen member. This was written and published in the December 2000 issue of The Communicator magazine under "How one appraiser changed the system". I am now a member of the Board of Directors of the Appraisal Section of the Virginia Association of Realtors. So Kim, sit back, do nothing. There are many good appraisers in California I am sure that will pull your laod for you.

Don

 

[Terry Russell]