I Cover the Whole State!

[Mike Garrett RAA]

Does an appraiser have to be competent to accept an appraisal assignment? No.

Can an appraiser gain competence? Yes

Like it or not...not a violation of USPAP or, at least in my state, license law. Performing an appraisal without having competence is.

That said...I try to keep my work to my county. Now that is a pretty large area but it is covered by one MLS and the public record system is quite good. You couldn't pay me enough to travel all over the state to do a residential appraisal but I know appraisers who do.

 

[CANative]

Geographical competence = Understanding the market.

It has nothing to do with geography.

 

[Stone]

Geographical competence = Understanding the market.

It has nothing to do with geography.

I've said things like it before, but...

Geographical competence = something I gain when I go into a new market but is something those appraising in my home market from other areas couldn't possibly have.

 

[smallface]

That's nothing. I cover the entire world.

 

[residentialguy]

Does an appraiser have to be competent to accept an appraisal assignment? No.

Can an appraiser gain competence? Yes

Then you're not talking about Fannie Mae deals. You must be competant to accept the assignment. You cannot accept it then gain competence.
Although the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) allows an appraiser who does not have the appropriate knowledge and experience to accept an appraisal assignment by providing procedures with which the appraiser can complete the assignment, Fannie Mae does not allow this guideline to apply. Fannie Mae requires that lenders only use appraisers who have the appropriate knowledge and experience, and does not allow the USPAP flexibility. They do not want the appraiser to acquire competency in the local market, they want the appraiser to have competency in the local market. In other words, they don’t want anyone learning a market on one of their appraisals.

 

[dobie]

Besides. I thought New Jersey wasn't much more than slums and cranberry bogs personally

You're gonna have to do better than that. We've heard it all before.

 

[Mike Garrett RAA]

Then you're not talking about Fannie Mae deals. You must be competant to accept the assignment. You cannot accept it then gain competence.
Although the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) allows an appraiser who does not have the appropriate knowledge and experience to accept an appraisal assignment by providing procedures with which the appraiser can complete the assignment, Fannie Mae does not allow this guideline to apply. Fannie Mae requires that lenders only use appraisers who have the appropriate knowledge and experience, and does not allow the USPAP flexibility. They do not want the appraiser to acquire competency in the local market, they want the appraiser to have competency in the local market. In other words, they don’t want anyone learning a market on one of their appraisals.

I was speaking from a USPAP perspective. Wonderful Fannie Mae brought us .... the UAD, fraud, and now massive law suits. Have they made appraising any better? I doubt it. I'm still seeing newly licensed appraisers coming down to Colo Spgs from Denver. Do they have geographic competence? I doubt it.

Does being a local appraiser mean the appraiser is competent in all types of assignments? I doubt it. We should remember residential appraising is only one part of appraising. Lots of appraisers doing commercial work such as regional shopping centers, national chain store locations, etc. would not have geographic competence every where and yet they do those types of assignments all the time.

Should an appraiser have geographic competence to complete an assignment? Of course. Can a client add to the requirements for competency? I believe so. So what happens in certain rural locations where there are no "local" appraisers? Inquiring minds want to know.

 

[J Grant]

Commercial work , the income stream and other economic factors are relied on at least in part to determine value, and numbers transcend geography. And special use properties such as airports or mega malls, there might be no comps even in the same state. Still, geographic comepetence, in terms of being able to gather information as to what local factors would impact marketability near a particular mall/airport etc would factor in. A commercial appraiser could gather that from a local appraiser, from travel, consultations etc.

Residential is more reliant on local knowledge and understanding the positives and negatives of location and nunaces of local influences, which might be overlooked by those unfamiliar with the area. Appeal, prices and marketability can vary widely from one condo building to the next, for example, even though the two buildings are adjacent to each other.

 

[David Mescon]

Geo-competence CAN be gained. We weren't born knowing everything we do now. It's just a matter of the willingness to put forth the effort to gain that competence. We all know that many appraisers just won't take the time necessary to become competent enough to properly complete an assignment in a new area.

I was approached some years back about appraising a small island nation. It would have involved both "before" and "after" value scenarios, and would have been used for litigation. It didn't take too long to devise an appropriate plan and assemble a competent team to carry it out. I eventually declined the assignment for a variety of reasons, but none of them had anything to do with competence.

I'm certainly not advocating charging into the vast unknown and throwing all caution (and due diligence) to the wind. I'm just sayin' just as we've learned the nuances of the areas in which we're specialists, we can become competent in new areas as well.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

You're gonna have to do better than that. We've heard it all before.

Hey...I get all the hillbilly jokes... suffer..

seriously, core competency relates to solving the problem. If you don't have that skill then you can screw up appraising the house next door.