Intimidation....I Will Not Be Silenced

[George Hatch]

I doubt anyone has ever taken that "partner" rhetoric seriously.

And yes, by the time a lender is choosing between AMC vs direct engagement there is definitely a competition in motion and whichever side prevails in that competition is the winner.

 

[chad hampton]

Even if they choose an AMC, an independent appraiser is still supposed to be the one that ends up with the assignment. That’s why for their first decade of their existence, we were called partners.

 

[George Hatch]

The competition I was referring to was between which of the two the lender would directly contract with. It's the same thing appraisers are complaining about when they say the AMCs stole their business from them.

"Partner" implies parity. I never once had parity with any of my fee shops, employers or clients. I'm a vendor at most. I'm in business to sell the SR1/SR2 they want to buy, that decision being user-driven. Not appraiser-driven.

On the CG side there are a lot of my peers who only want to sell what they want to sell, not necessarily what their clients actually wants to buy. Some users require and some clients prefer the long form narrative that runs 120 or 150 pages for even the simple properties. Others don't need that much all the time; only when the appraisal problem gets complicated.

 

[Digger88]

make a website for .99c vibe code a site and post the letter for all to see

 

[J Grant]

So what? You don't have the lived experience of taking the financial hit I suffered when I made the biggest gamble of my career and transitioned out of doing 1-4s for myself into going to work as a salaried employee to learn non-resd'l appraising. You don't have the lived experience of committing to just the one source of assignments, only to get laid off right as the market was tanking. Going from having a salary to having ZERO income in one day. I went straight to an SFR fee shop to work for splits because I had a family to support. Don't tell me I don't know what it's like to have backed the wrong horse and paid the price for it.

You didn't have that experience, but I'm pretty sure you understand the level of pain that was involved.
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None of which has any bearing on the fact that its the lenders who have called the shots on direct engagement vs AMC engagement all along. It's the AMC users who buy the bundled fee and who do not care what your end is.

And yes, the fee appraisers compete directly with the AMCs for those clients. They always have.

Sorry, and with respect for the challenges you have faced and overcome, the things you mention are the kinds of decisions and risks and setbacks that most of us face over the course of a career.

The HVCC was different; it destroyed, with one decision, nearly every res license appraiser's livelihood and created a lack of future opportunities.

Your individual struggles can be compared to an individual whose personal house caught on fire. While an awful experience, their house can be rebuilt, and even if damaged or gone, the town and area around the house are still standing to provide income or other shelter.

The HVCC impact is akin to the entire state being burnt down in a wildfire. Make that the entire nation burned down, as a comparison, wrt the mass scale effect the HVCC had. Overnight, practically every res appraiser working on the res lender end had their business destroyed, and worse, had almost no chance in the future of ever getting their former clients back. They could work for their own former clients for half the fee for an AMC, or nothing.

Because of the mass scale, the last sentence youy wrote shows a lack of understanding of the fundamental problem

While fee appraisers can technically compete with an AMC, in the real world, it is practically impossible. I suggest you personally try it. You have an excellent resume and credentials; try getting clients who use an AMC to use you individually instead. Get back to us on it!

A lender or wholesaler who chooses not to use an AMC will engage an individual appraiser, so appraisers can compete against each other to get on the panel. But if a lender has a top-down decision to use an AMC, no matter how happy they were with an individual appraiser, the lender typically tells the appraiser that, going forward, they must get that lender's work through the AMC.

In the actual market, even if technically allowed, fee appraisers do not compete with AMCs for clients. AMCs compete with other AMCs for clients.

If a client chooses to use, or drop using, an AMC, it is nearly always a mass-scale decision that has nothing to do with any individual appraiser.

 

[J Grant]

I doubt anyone has ever taken that "partner" rhetoric seriously.

And yes, by the time a lender is choosing between AMC vs direct engagement there is definitely a competition in motion and whichever side prevails in that competition is the winner.

The partner verbiage is meaningless, so we can move on from that.

f a lender chooses between an AMC and direct engagement, it is not an individual fee appraiser basis. (Your statement that a fee appraiser competes with an AMC for a client on the other post )

The AMC enjoys an unfair (via govt perk entitlement) competitive advantage of offering the client, using Sam Smith the appraiser, this: hey lender, you can continue to use the excellent Sam Smith but use him for us, and for sure, we provide you with admin help to relieve you of that burden.
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The lender tells Sam Smith that from now on, to get the same orders, he must sign up with the AMC. And when Sam Smith sees the low, low fees, he must accept or bid to get the AMC assignment; if he asks for more, the AMC skips over him. If Sam Smith goes back to the lender, most times the lender says, " Sorry, we are committed to the AMC and will not use you directly.

If an appraiser decides on direct engagement in full or in part instead of an AMC, it is typically a mass-scale decision. And again, the AMC offering free of hard-cost service has a huge advantage. It is often loan wholesalers rather than lenders who choose to order direct instead of through an AMC.

 

[George Hatch]

The govt perk entitlement you keep referring to is not something govt gave to anyone. If the lenders aren't separating the fee in their disclosures due to never being required to before then that's simply a lack of prohibition. If the lenders buying the bundled fee due to it never being prohibited before then that isn't something the govt gave anyone; it's simply a lack of prohibition.

Appraisers are mad that the govt has not ADDED more prohibitions as to what the lender is allowed to buy. Either way, it's the lenders doing buying the bundle. Nobody else.

 

[Zoe]

You're 100% right - you are not an employee. You're a business.

Consumers are free to pick and choose which companies to do business with. Has nothing to do with the AMC model.

IRS has not classified many independent appraisers employees, however, if you read the employee vs independent contractor?

You can read IRS definition of employee vs independent contractor as published by the IRS.

That is like most appraisers agree a trainee really is or should be classified as an employee.

 

[J Grant]

The govt perk entitlement you keep referring to is not something govt gave to anyone. If the lenders aren't separating the fee in their disclosures due to never being required to before then that's simply a lack of prohibition. If the lenders buying the bundled fee due to it never being prohibited before then that isn't something the govt gave anyone; it's simply a lack of prohibition.

Appraisers are mad that the govt has not ADDED more prohibitions as to what the lender is allowed to buy. Either way, it's the lenders doing buying the bundle. Nobody else.

No offense, but this is more of the academically presented material of what you often post, and it is not just dry or academic the points made excuse the behavior of lenders and AMC's and thus throw the appraiser under the bus,

The protection of lack of dislsore and the huge amounts kept by an AMC was a govt perk given - who else gave it, the tooth fair ?? the perk was exploited further and further by the AMC/lender alliance to the point where consumer lawsuits wre filed ( see below ) The appraisers have been more severely harmed than consumers, but consumers are the public so they got the class action suit.

The original intent of a bundled fee was meant to not have to separate cover add-on misc services such as notary or messenger (back in the day). Back then, there was also a regulatory statement that the amount of the secondary fee whether for title or appraisal in the covered fee, that the amount of a secondary service ( admin, notary, messenger ) be a charge or fee proportionate to their contribution to the primary service ( the title in title fee, the appraisal in appraisal fee)

That part of the regulations magically disappeared at some point - not sure when it happened. But it clearly spelled out the intention of the govt allowing a covered bunded fee. .
In the consumer lawsuits making their way through the courts, it is not just that the lender failed to disclose to the consumer that their appraisal fee covered a third-party AMC service; it was the AMOUNT of the appraisal fee the AMC keeps - the lawsuits describe it as unjust enrichment and one lawsuit compares it to usury.

It would have been a different tale had the lenders and AMCs ensured by self-regulation that the fee the AMC kept was a reasonable proportionate amount; 10-20% is what most management or third-party fees look like in the rest of the business world. But in appraisals, it is hte wild west - the AMC can keep 30%, 40%, 60%, whatever they can since their amount is not disclosed. I hope if these suits get settled in favor of Breakout/dislsore that it be done upfront,m the day the consumer commits to the loan and pays for the appraisal fee, and not on the back end buried in the appraisal

 

[DTB]

Bad analogy. The AMC sending the letter has no public connection to the AMC named by the poster in social media posts.

They don't like the cut of his jib.



End of story IMO