if you want EVERYONE to take us professionally.
I wish they did, however, they don't so I doubt it matters. If they did, they wouldn't cancel assignments when they found someone cheaper. As I said, I don't cancel assignments like that but sometimes it take a day or two to figure out it's not your cup of tea. I have withdrawn from a number of assignments after the inspection. There are several reasons why. The property is so over-valued it is no use wasting my time and their money. The conditions are far more complex than the property was proposed to me and the price I bid. Like the time I got on site for a new residential construction only to find it was an operating commercial cabinet building site. And 90% of that was the result of dealing with secondary market. I eliminated them years ago and even then I was only working for regional banks in secondary market so I never had screwed with the AMC types. However, a couple of my trainees turned independent did and regretted it much of the time. One died being owed considerable money from AMCs.
My solution to the worst of these was to eliminate secondary market entirely and 99.9999% of those problems went away. I do in-house banking appraisals. Mostly rural and commercial. And I specialize in mineral rights - which was much of my business until the market prices fell off a cliff about 5 years ago.
I propose that when our client stop jerking our chain then we can afford the luxury of being professional. But if I am going to be treated like a buffoon, then I'll make them as miserable as they make me. My favorite reply to some phone monkey calling and saying, "whatsyourfeeandturntimeforasinglefamilyresidenceinAdairCounty?" My reply? "If you have to ask, you can't afford me." Then 100% of the time, they pause and about half the time they say, "Oh? Thank you." click. Ask me if I give a crap. They are not a business relationship I want anyway. If the letter of engagement is more than 2 pages, it gets a good looking over and if it is over 6 pages, I don't waste my time with it. I reject the assignment or don't bid on it at all. In fact, I quit bidding. Today I picked up an assignment from a bank that "requires" me to use their portal, so I told them I had better things to do. So I've done 3 so far this year for them....no portal, they order direct like they used to. It's a mutual choice. I can appraise property or I can **** with portals and bids. I'm busier than I want at 70 than I care to be anyway. And the bank knows that the closest CG is 30 miles away and will charge and arm and a leg for the simplest assignments. If the assignment is in Oklahoma side of the line, then their problem is compounded as they have to go 90 miles away to Tulsa to find a CG and most of them don't want to take assignments 3 counties over.
As for "professional" - I wonder why any CR would not want to get their CG and having options to get a professional fee for their work instead of bantering over chump change with some AMC that may or may not pay in a timely manner. Estates and giftings are premium fee work and often require a CG. And zero reviews unless you're a complete moron. When I return to room temperature or retire, there won't be a single CG on this side of the county. On my plate now is a car wash, a donation of land, an estate appraisal of a dwelling and land, a small ranch, another estate, and a cabin/hunting land on the lake. I offered to help train a guy but he's "too busy" with residences. Fine. People die regularly. And most of those can be done at your leisure - no 72 hour turn time and hurry up mistake riddled form reports. Housing markets ebb and flow and when they ebb the fees offered are scraping the bottom of the barrel. So if you are interested in the field of appraising, then would you not try to achieve the top license and smooth out those slow times?
Without the commercial license, you get stuck in form monkey land. But when I ask CRs why they wouldn't try to work towards a CG, part of it is they are too lazy to learn how to use a word processing program (it isn't that hard or I couldn't do it), never get past cutting/pasting into cloning reports, has no idea how to create templates, drop down menus, etc. and if they buy a narrative writer they don't want to learn it, and they are too cheap to take commercial level classes or even that $45 night class to learn Excel and Word or learn WordPerfect on line - which is easier to learn than Word in my opinion and I use both.
I am happy to treat clients professionally. I am up front with them about my limitations. I charge a modest fee that is commensurate with the time and expense of the project. I don't gouge anyone, but I am not going to work for peanuts either.
