Ever Wondered Who's Selling Us Out?

[Kevin Mc]

I personally have found that offering superior customer service, having exceptional business skills and an excellent product, i am not competing with fools.

My bold......


Now that is a business plan

 

[Wendy]

Sorry, but verification takes time, especially when calling agents to find out if there are seller's concessions on the comps. Unless you're lucky enough to have an MLS where agents consistently and accurately report concessions and conditions of the property, you need to talk to them. While you sometimes might be able to get this done in 24 hours, in practice it's not realistic.
This is the step that's often skipped by the 24'ers, and this can easily affect value. You might be able to type up a report that fast, but due diligence is going to suffer.

Very good point. I used a sale yesterday that sold for $193 and the list was $188. A person too hurried to verify might have assumed a $5 concession - pretty typical round here. Our MLS provides no concession information.

The agent did return my call in about a day - concession turned out to be $15.

There are appraisers who can churn out a fast, cheap and good product. Problem is, we have a plethora of poorly trained appraisers who are churning out a fast, cheap and bad product.

 

[Bill_FL]

Sorry, but verification takes time, especially when calling agents to find out if there are seller's concessions on the comps. Unless you're lucky enough to have an MLS where agents consistently and accurately report concessions and conditions of the property, you need to talk to them. While you sometimes might be able to get this done in 24 hours, in practice it's not realistic.
This is the step that's often skipped by the 24'ers, and this can easily affect value. You might be able to type up a report that fast, but due diligence is going to suffer.

Maybe, until you learn to work differntly. Rather than waiting to call when you "need" the sale, why not print out every sale in your market area every day, make all your calls and as they are verified put them in your database. Shoot the pictures while you are on the road that day anyway. When its time to do a report, the comp is there, shot and verified. Speeds up the process a ton.

I do not do this for every sale. I know my market and I do this for the sales that I think I have a high probability of using. If the need arises for the ones that I did not verify and shoot, than I do it when needed. But if you have 80-90% of the data all ready in your database, sure makes things easier and faster. Especially if you use software that will download the data from MLS to your database. Then you just have to go refine in the few items that might need it.

See, by limiting your thinking to your small box, you will stay where you are. What is the old saying, "If you do what you have always done you will get what you have always gotten"?

You say slow is due dillegence. I say slow is slow and unproductive.

 

[Smokey Bear]

See, by limiting your thinking to your small box, you will stay where you are. What is the old saying, "If you do what you have always done you will get what you have always gotten"?

Guess you have a much tighter working area than I had. If I'm appraising in Berkeley one day and Fremont the next, it's kinda hard to get all the sales for Dublin, Brentwood, Antioch and Vallejo on the same drive. Soooo, the limited thinking seems to be in the ASSumption that this is even workable for the majority of appraisers. Glad it works for you, though.

 

[Wendy]

How long is the typical lending process from start to finish? How much does the entire loan package cost the borrower?

Which leads me to:

Why does the appraisal need to be a 24 hr turn around? Why is the highest liability work, the appraisal, the lowest paying portion of the lending process?

I just don't get it. I do know that clients who desire really good work rarely demand fast turns or rock bottom fees. Hummm.......

 

[ockyappraiser]

The bottom line here is that what many of us are saying is that quick turn arounds and even lower prices do not mean poor quality. There are many on this forum that frankly sound like the local store owner when Walmart comes to town.

Let's use "matched pairs". The mortgage loan officer is looking at two appraisers. One uses disto for measuring, Tablet PC on site, GPS to determine which of the comps he has all ready pulled and checked are closest to the subject, takes digital pictures that drop into the report, drives the comps quickly with GPS and emails the report from the car.

the other still uses a tape measure, a clipboard (because he/she does not trust a disto), does not do any of the comp work up front, uses hard printouts for everything which means going back to the office to work it up. ..then likes to "sit on the report for a day to consider it".

What's the adjustment?

Oh yeah. . .then when the LO chooses door one, the clipboard guy mutters "skippy" and spends the rest of the afternoon building his/her thread count on line. . .while appraiser number one is all ready sending in his second appraisal

 

[Bill_FL]

How long is the typical lending process from start to finish? How much does the entire loan package cost the borrower?

Which leads me to:

Why does the appraisal need to be a 24 hr turn around? Why is the highest liability work, the appraisal, the lowest paying portion of the lending process?

I just don't get it. I do know that clients who desire really good work rarely demand fast turns or rock bottom fees. Hummm.......

My bold. Wendy, we do not disagree. I am not an inexpensive appraiser to hire. However, trying to make the stretch that slow and expensive equal quality is just a dumb assertion to make. They are three independent variables. They have no bearing at all on each other. If you local "skippy" suddenly slowed down to a week and charged twice what he is charging now, but produced the exact same reports he does now, would he then be producing a quality report because he takes longer and charges more? Man, I really did not think this was that hard of a concept to grasp.

Are there clients out there who can recognize levels of quality and be willing to pay a premium for it? Sure. But its not the price that makes the quality. Could someone else produce the same thing I do for half the price? Yup. I just wont do it for half the price, but I am sure there is someone who would.

 

[Wendy]

Bill & Mark,

The root of my argument has not been cheap & fast = bad. I acknowledge that cheap & fast can be good (& that slow and expensive is not always best).

What bothers me is the can't beat 'em, join 'em thinking. Most of the cheap fees are coming from AMCs. The consumer is still paying full fee - the problem is that the appraiser isn't getting it and most times the AMC is not earning their disproportionate share of it. That's the rub.

Bill,

The point I was trying to make in #125 was that it is the worst of the lending clients who want fast turns and cheap fees. Those clients are also, for the most part, wanting appraisers who will hit numbers while they (the lender) gouge consumers with high lending fees.

 

[ockyappraiser]

Wendy. ..I share your pain with AMC's. The way I deal with them is this:

they are bringing customers I can't get any other way
the ones I work with pay quickly

In essence I look on the fee reduction in the same way a realtor looks at a referral fee.

AMC's aside, my fees are higher than most in my market and I am COD unless I KNOW the customer. I don't mind when asked about other appraisers that are lower fee. It gives me a chance to market myself.

Bottom line: rather than complaining about appraisers with lower fees ask yourselves: "Why should the customer use me over the other guy". Then market yourself to the customer as WORTH the higher fee.

 

[Ken B]

My bold......


Now that is a business plan

I completely agree with you about that. That is a plan for success.