Judy Whitehead (Florida)
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jan 20, 2002
- Professional Status
- Certified Residential Appraiser
- State
- Florida
Thought I might share my highlight of the week with you all. I'm sitting here typing my brains out about 4pm yesterday afternoon, phone rings, the "Chief Underwriter" of one of my largest clients (a bank) is on a speaker phone and tells me that the Sr. Vice President in charge is in the room with her. We (my trainee son) had done an appraisal on one of their foreclosures for a buyer to obtain a mortage (we did not do the REO appraisal) and they had just gotten a call from their REO department asking why in the world were they contemplating doing a loan on this property, as they had to "dump it" for $30-40,000 less as it had massive settlement problems and structural problems.
Oh hey - that will get your blood pressure up! They then share with me that our (my son's) appraisal report did not indicate anything like that! So, they asked if we still had the key - I said it's on lock box, I'll be there to pick you up in a few minutes - so the Sr.Vice Pres. and I do Mr. Toad's Wild Ride 15 miles to this house (they wanted to close today).
Thankfully, absolutely nothing indicated that this house had problems - no cracks, nothing. The house is only 4 years old and was actually in real good condition. Mr. Sr. Vice Pres. said he had no idea why that division would call and say such a thing! I glanced at the real estate sign in the front yard and advised him to find out "who" told them that the house was breaking apart - that the real estate company that had the listing specialized in foreclosures and liked to "turn them over" real, real, quick, so if I were him, I would find out where the information came from.
For me, it turned out to be a good thing to respond to them so quickly and get it resolved so quickly. I also got a hour or so to "ingratiate" myself with the client. I could also give my son a compliment or two, as I did remember that he appraised it a good bit higher than the sales price and worried that he was doing something wrong. I was able to point out that appraisers are just as concerned when the estimate of market value is higher than the sales price!
Oh hey - that will get your blood pressure up! They then share with me that our (my son's) appraisal report did not indicate anything like that! So, they asked if we still had the key - I said it's on lock box, I'll be there to pick you up in a few minutes - so the Sr.Vice Pres. and I do Mr. Toad's Wild Ride 15 miles to this house (they wanted to close today).
Thankfully, absolutely nothing indicated that this house had problems - no cracks, nothing. The house is only 4 years old and was actually in real good condition. Mr. Sr. Vice Pres. said he had no idea why that division would call and say such a thing! I glanced at the real estate sign in the front yard and advised him to find out "who" told them that the house was breaking apart - that the real estate company that had the listing specialized in foreclosures and liked to "turn them over" real, real, quick, so if I were him, I would find out where the information came from.
For me, it turned out to be a good thing to respond to them so quickly and get it resolved so quickly. I also got a hour or so to "ingratiate" myself with the client. I could also give my son a compliment or two, as I did remember that he appraised it a good bit higher than the sales price and worried that he was doing something wrong. I was able to point out that appraisers are just as concerned when the estimate of market value is higher than the sales price!
