Hi My Name Is

[Ross (CO)]

Jeff, .....When Paul Revere made his famous ride I'll bet he did not canvass the settlement and first ask 15 other guys to go out and make "the ride". He got on HIS horse and kicked it. Sorry, but perhaps this Forum does not have 200 or 300 other participants as ready to mount their horse.....as you may be. So, we expect your voice will be among the leaders of the charge.

You seem to be letting the "rules" smother your every waking effort. They are not rules as much as they are suggestions, ie. ...we suggest you do things this way, and you (the appraiser) will have the greater benefit for avoiding any future scenario where you must take strong defense for your actions. Those appraisers who break the rules may one day....as long as it takes....pay the piper. Just ask Qusay and Ouday. (Saddam , you're next )

As for the "owner's estimate" stuff, it's as ancient as the Dead Sea Scrolls. The people who hire us know what they are trying to do, and until they have "rules" it will continue. I know, I know, you want them to have such rules now, today, immediately....and they aren't there yet. Live with it, and just know that YOU have chosen to completely ignore the "estimates" and not think about them....and do your reports the way it is "suggested" we all do them. So what if they put such a number on your order ! We ALL have those orders filed away in our archived boxes, each and every one of us, but I doubt there is a massive and collective fear that we actually went out and "appraised to a pre-determined value" with every sinew in our body and spirit striving to meet that number. Absolutely and uneqivically it was the opposite. We've all fielded the questions afterwards about why we did not call first to give them heads-up, blah, blah, blah. No wonder so many have been commenting recently about what it takes to become "approved". There are heaps and gobs of us who could never become approved, because we do things the way they have been suggested to us. As a survival technique, and post-report sanity maintainer, many of us have had to adapt by creating the c.o.d. or client pre-pay requirement. Want to take stress out of this work ? I find more and more of them are willing to accept those conditions.

If you are working with home-town clients, and it seems that the neighborhood number-hitting appraiser is effectively taking away business from you......seek some out-of-state clients who work (lend) in your area. You will be surprised to learn that they are out there. Most of my work is for out-of-staters after I found that comp checks, pre-appraisal hunches and verbal-sharing, and long roster lists of in-place home-town appraisers were delaying my chances for ever being "approved".

Why the confusion you mention over how to handle the "ReCert" ? We have been given the gift of saying in nearly all those odd-ball requests..."It's a NEW order, a NEW report, and a NEW full (or almost full) fee. Seize that gift we have, and tell any client who asks about the RULE which those "inside the profession" have set for us. (It's almost a secret and silent pleasure to imagine them squirming around in their chair when we lay down the "rules" for them about the ReCert thing !)

I do not know the Florida Board, nor know any of the personalities that comprise it. Not my state. Whatever your grievances are with them, are your's. I can say that many of us who live in geographically large states, like FL and CO (#8) , etc. the miles that separate most appraisers from easier access to their meetings means that.....a lot of folks have to do a lot of driving to attend meetings. Appraisers in RI, DE,VT, NH, CT, NJ have it much easier.

Best Wishes,

 

[airphoto]

Ross, et al ..

I recollect the days when, employed by TRW and SMS the appraiser was required to write a specific addendum (required by the lender, btw) to explain why the appraisal did not meet the borrower's expectations ..

My typical addendum was 'provide me the qualifications of the fool that came up with this crazy value figure, and I'll be pleased to provide you an analysis of why that unlicensed, uncertified (perhaps certifiable) idiot is not qualified to provide a value. However, the appraisal stands alone as the basis for the valuation of the property.'

Hated those SOBs with a passion ..

 

[Francois K. Gregoire]

Originally posted by jeff samolinski@Aug 3 2003, 09:58 AM
One thought though about the lack of support for new rules.

Where in God's name do you think the rules on us came from in the first place? They came from the users of our appraisals. The very people that find the need to impose these rules are out there trying to get us to violate them so they can their deals.

Jeff,

To what "rules" are you referring?

Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice?

Sorry, those were not developed by users of appraisals. Originally developed by the Ad Hoc Committee on Uniform Standards during 1986 - 1987 and copyrighted by the Appraisal Foundation in 1987. You will find the original Standards relating to Real Property Appraisals bear an uncanny resemblance to the Codes of Ethics of the various Sponsoring Organizations of the Appraisal Foundation. In other words, the USPAP was developed by appraisers, not users.

As you know, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice is the responsibility of the Appraisal Standards Board of the Appraisal Foundation. Members of the Appraisal Standards Board are APPRAISERS. They write the USPAP!!

Rules of the Florida Real Estate Appraisal Board?

Sorry, those were not developed by users of appraisals. Originally developed by the Appraisal Subcommittee of the Florida Real Estate Commission in during 1989 - 1990. At that time, there were three appraiser members of the Appraisal Subcommittee. Subsequent rules have been developed by the Florida Real Estate Appraisal Board. Members included two State-Certified Residential Appraisers, two State-Certified General Appraisers, two consumer members and one user member. Up until 2003, the same individual has served as the user member. He was a banker. It's a stretch to reach a conclusion the rules of the FREAB have been developed by users.

I just thought for once maybe we can sponsor some rules- I'll bet we could come up with some they will realy not like. We can't get at them directly so why not use our own board to strike a few blows of our own.

There is nothing preventing you, or anyone else, from proposing a rule. Hopefully, the reasoning in support of the rule will be better than "coming up with some users will really not like".

In addition to the childishness of the idea, Florida requires specific statutory authority. Of course you know this, having skimmed Chapter 120 F.S.

Frank: I know I've been a little hard on you but I am trying to find your action button because I am tired of your reasons why this or that can't be done topped off by zero input on what you think needs or can be done. How about resonding to that one. I would like to see if I can support your agenda for the board since none of my first few ideas are any good.

With all due respect, Jeff, you do not know me, have no idea what I do, where I happen to be involved, who I happen to be involved with, who I've battled or where I've butted heads. Your insults bother me less than your understanding of history, law and reality.

PS- Let those that say it can't be done stand aside from those that want to do it.

Be my guest. Direct your comments to:

Cynthia Wright, Chairman
Florida Real Estate Appraisal Board
Division of Real Estate
400 West Robinson Street
Suite 809 North
Orlando, Florida 32801

To be effective and successful, it is suggested proposals for new rules reference the statutory authority and attention be given the other restrictions imposed by Chapter 120, F.S. mentioned previously in the Florida Forum

 

[Red Blumenstock]

:jumping:

Excellent post Frank. One with substance.

 

[Don Clark]

:twisted: But Frank, it is so much easier to whine, and let's not forget, as long as i am whining please don't bother me with your whining. At least that is about what I get out of Jeff's post.

Was it not he who said "As not what I can do for you, what can you do for me?"

My answer, nothing.

BTW, I have done things in my own state: re. Communicator Magazine, December 2002..."How One Appraiser Changed The System". Ask them for a copy. You will find that I, along with others that I did not realize were working toward the same goal, got some very important changes made in my state of Virginia. Originally we had a 9 member board comprised of 4 appraisers, 3 lenders, 1 citizen member, and 1 education member. I attended a meeting of the board(yes, I do attend board meetings now and then). At the meeting there was a very important case. As I looked around all I saw was 4 appraisers, the citizen member, and a new education member. I asked a member of the board at a break, "where are the lender membrs?". I was told that they almost never came to a board meeting. As I saw it, we had a nine member board, were automatically outnumbered, and 3 members almost never did any work, or showed up for a meeting. As soon as I got home I wrote my state delegate. He wrote a letter to the head of the department under which the appraiser board operates. The letter was double speak. He pursued the matter. At the next meeting of the general assembly he was approached by another delegate who was asked by the appraisal section of the Virginia Association of Realtors to look into the matter. I received a call and then a Fax from the general assembly. A bill was introduced, and what I had proposed was adopted. 6 appraisers on the board, 1 lender member, 1 education member, and 1 citizen member. I had also asked that the requirement that a seal be used on an appraisal report be dropped as well. It had already been removed from regulations but was still in the law. That was dropped as well.

I am not looking for any atta boys in stating this. Just that if you want something done, contact those who can make changes. Gett off your duff, stop whining, and do what you would like others to do for you.

Don

 

[Don Clark]

:redface: OOPS!

Communicator Magazine December 2000

Don

 

[xm39hnu]

Originally posted by Don Clark@Aug 1 2003, 07:50 PM
President John Kennedy said "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" We he alive today he would probably be accused of being a conservative republican. However, his words inspired a generation.

<snip>

Lord knows, it would be too much to ask for many appraisers to do something to help themselves.

Don

Two quick points:
While it is true that JFK uttered the words quoted, he borrowed it from Karl Marx, who said, "Ask not what the State can do for you, but what you can do for the State."

"My Country" sounds so much more appealing than "the State," don't you think?

Kennedy would indeed have been considered a conservative Republican. He lowered the top tax bracket from 98% to only 70%!

Second point: We <are> doing something to help ourselves. This forum itself offers a place to meet, to get ideas from more experienced appraisers, to get help on the tough ones, and to see for ourselves that there are other appraisers in the world who share our goals of impartiality and professionalism. While it is certainly not the "silver bullet" that will defeat all our complaints, it does serve as one of the "thousand points of light" in the mortgage brokerage abyss.

Perfect solutions, like perfect comps, seldom exist. The best we can hope for is to be able to mitigate the most egregious complaints.

 

[jeff samolinski]

Blue1:

your comments totally reflect my feelings:

Jtrotta:

I've been waiting for someone to throw the ole wha have you done at me. So here is one:

For a long time I was pissed about how each lender had their own version of the fannie mae checklist for manufactured homes. So I wrote a letter to my congressman and copied the appropriate bureaucrat in fannie mae. Included in the letter were attachments from 5 different lenders showing the five different versions of what they wanted me to sign off on including the infamous foundation one. Well of course the response I got from Fannie mae was the standard bureaucratic one basically regurgitating fannie mae current guidelines but no recognition of the fact that the lenders were out there abusing them by expecting appraiser to sign off on things we are not qualified to do. I suggested to them that they they look at what HUD was doing with its vc sheets and how HUD had made it clearer for everyone who should be doing what. I suggested they adopt an official checklist that interprets their guidelines more clearly for all parties.

Now mind you, I am certainly not claiming that two letters and numerous phone calls did a darn thing but others must have been feeling the same way and we now have a fannie mae addendum to use. Oh by the way the addendum is a kind of new rule on us that everyone is so afraid of on this forum but it is an example of what I am talking about when I refer to some new rules that are helpful to us.

To all those others saying that I am whining and do something myself, what do you think I am doing now by posting. I am risking the wrath of a member of my board by being very hard on him to get him to help us do something. By the way, I am sure that my methods with him are not the best way to get him moving but with the propensity of the typical human being typically being slanted toward inaction I cannot think of any better way. After all in my opinion to get nominated to the board one must have better creditials than myself and must certainly not be the type of proffesional that rocks the boat too much.

Frank:

I cannot believe that you are so naive to believe that the rules you cited were actually the result of appraisers imposing those rules upon themselves. Based on your position about new rules you must be totally opposed to everything you cited. After all they were all new rules at one time. The impetus for those rules came from the users of our reports, the savings and loan crisis fo rwhich we were blamed and pressures from others who think we are an unneccesary part of the process. The appraisers that wrote them or adopted them are part of the old good ole boy appraisal institute clan( you know the ones that didn't really want any women MAI's). You don't really believe that USPAP was written by appraisers and for appraisers do you? They were written so the lenders would have a formal document( something outside the old appraisal institutes good ole boy system for joining the club) to club us with while they bait the traps for us.

Finally:

I ask all of you again, help me define our specific problems as a start. Then we can work on how we approach the solutions and in which venue we should present them. I agree much of what we need lies within the purvue of our state legislatures. I just fail to see why our boards can't be used to gather the data, officially recognize it and add their weight to kick it on up to the appropriate agencies/legislative committees, etc.. I do not and never will accept Frank's and others typical response that its not our job or we can't do anything about it.

I strongly believe that Frank and others on these boards owe us in the field some type of idea of what their agendas are for helping us unless they intend to make it an insiders job only. However I realize that we did not appoint them and maybe because of that they owe us nothing.

 

[George Hatch]

Jeff,

You have legitimate complaints and everyone here shares your pain to one extent or another. Nobody disagrees that the supply side of the equation (that's us) operates under a different and much more strict set of rules than the demand side (our clients). Although merely having the rules on the books is a start, those results of those rules and regs are dependent on the enforcement of them. Enforcement programs that are over lax or overly strict, or otherwise uneven and inconsistent, will have correspondingly negative results, wouldn't you agree?

In regards to having rules in place for our clients, I think everyone is in agreement with that idea. The question that remains is what entity is to be charged with that enforcement and how can we influence our respective states or even the feds to finance those programs? If I'm not mistaken, the FREAB is specifically authorized and charged with the responsibility to license and regulate appraisers. Not their clients. If we want to deal with the clients, we'll need to find a different venue. Since the overwhelming majority of pressure faced by appraisers comes from the lending community (who represent a stable client base) rather than the happy homeowners (who are mostly one-shot assignments), it seems like our best bet is to go after whomever regulates them. There are state regulatory agencies in most states (but not all) that assert authority over all lending activity in their state, but the real big guns are the feds. IMO, that's where our best efforts lie.

The feds already have this responsibility on a nationwide basis and they already have the rules on the books to deal with it. They are simply failing in their enforcement programs and are trying to force the states to shoulder all the burden for this problem via appraiser regulation. Obviously, this is better than nothing, but it isn't sufficient by itself.

So if we really want some impact, we should be focusing our efforts on the feds. Our clients should all be held to a standard similar in scope and conduct to our own, even to the point of losing their authority to do business. If we can get it done at the state level (as in the state banking commissions), that's great. But I can promise you that unless the state appraisal boards are granted new authority and a whole lot more money over the lenders (which will never happen), they will be unable to deal with anyone other than appraisers.

What the state boards can do is to get together as a group and come up with a fair and uniform enforcement standard so that both ethical and unethical appraisal conduct will be dealt with the same way everywhere. That's a legitimate issue we can all address with our respective state boards. We'll have to go elsewhere for the lender pressure issue.

One other thing. "The way things should be" is a great and noble concept, but it isn't the most important concept. "The way things are" has more bearing on our day-to-day lives. We are best served by dealing with the way things should be within the context of the way they actually are. To me, that means holding up our end of the deal in spite of the pressure and the adversity, not rolling over and declaring everything dead because the ideal isn't being universally met.

 

[jeff samolinski]

George:

good post especially your point about the way difference in the way things are and the way we wish they were.

I fully understand that some the (direct) solution to our problems lie outside the boards current authority. What I do not accept is that we can actually expect to go to these other boards and expect them to do something about it. Heck that may in fact be the answer and maybe I am wrong in assuming that those boards would be more likely to take a defensive posture in favor of those they regulate. Just because our board doesn't operate that way, I shouldn't expect all boards to be the same. In any event can you imagine you or me going to one of those lender boards and publicly filing a complaint. can you say business suicide. That is why i say our own board should have the guts to confront these issues on an interagency basis.