Holly Cow--The supply of appraisers

[Elliott]

I live 1 to 1-1/2 hour from Big City. When times
are good, Big City appraisers don't want to be
bothered with the drive time, let alone they are
most likely geo-incompetent (Appraiser to Realtor--
"So did you bring some sales I can use.")

So last night I decided to try to find an appraiser
who I'd heard was coming from Big City and had
jumped on the chance. So I'm searching MLS and
I learned that there were about 30 appraisers
who belonged to MLS!! This in a county with
a population of about 30,000!! Six years ago
there were only 5 appraisers, and one was a
drunk and one a skippy.

So I did a little more research....

Statewide Average: 1 residential appraiser per 3000 population
My County (based on MLS): 1 residential appraiser per 1000 population

But wait it gets scary--
Last year there were only 500 MLS sales and 10-15% of those
were cash. So that's means us 30 appraisers get to scrap
over about 1 sale per month per appraiser. That's crazy!

I don't know what the ratio of sales to refi's, but its probably
4 or 5 to 1 during refi boom years, but that's still a piddling volume
for 30 appraisers.

I've thought about this and here's my conclusion. During the last
5 or so 'good' years, MBs from Big City decided to always have
their brother or sister-in-law do all their work, including the
podunk locations, hence a horrible excess of appraisers in a
market that can not come close to supporting it.

The over supply of appraisers is the biggest problem facing us.
I have a feeling it will be years of hunkering down and I'll
really appreciate legal, divorce, and estate work.

 

[Conservative in Virginia]

too many appraisers AND no money to lend. Sad sad days!