New Trainee - How many residental appraisals can you do in a week?

[Greenback]

I always take photos of the comps from the street, never use MLS photos, I call the agent on every sale to verify the condition of the interior and if it has a patio/covered, etc, etc. I do this while we area driving to the comps and to the subject. We are not allowed to use boilerplate comments, I start with a brand new, mostly blank appraisal template every time I begin a new assignment. We do a lot of writing and explaining in the addendum regarding the market, the area, etc. I am working about 18 hours a day, most days. This is where I get upset because my mentor says it should only be taking me 4 hours per appraisal, instead of 8 or 9 hours.

CYA...
Cover Your ***


CYA was/is drilled into my head often by my mentor. One of the first things I learned was CYA.

 

[Greenback]

I see the name, "cookie cutters", often. I was taught that there is no such thing as a cookie cutter. I still to this day have no true idea of what a cookie cutter appraisal is. It makes no sense to me.

 

[Michigander]

The longer I have been appraising, the longer it takes me to develop and communicate the assignment. I started back in 1989 and at that time was able to do 7-8 a week. I left the fee world in 2004 (haven't done anything but review appraisals for some time now) but by then, I was lucky to do 4-5 a week. It seems to me the more you learn the more you realize you need to include to satisfy your clients needs as well as USPAP. Since I was predominantly completing work for divorce or ERC, the time needed on each assignment was longer than a simple cookie cutter on the 1004. Even those however seem to take a minimum of 7 hours from start to finish to make sure I didn't miss something that should have been covered.

 

[Hamlet]

I don't know about all that, but he seems to be pretty good at what he does. I'm not gonna say he walks on water, but he's well respected in his professional community and highly regarded by the banks and others that send him appraisals to do. I'm hoping there's a few left for me to do when he milks it dry.

Come to think of it, even though the housing market is supposed to be slow right now, I believe there are more homes for sale than ever in the DFW area that I live in. There are probably plenty of appraisals to go around.

There might be lots of houses for sale, but is anyone buying them?

 

[KD247]

I don't know about all that, but he seems to be pretty good at what he does. I'm not gonna say he walks on water, but he's well respected in his professional community and highly regarded by the banks and others that send him appraisals to do. I'm hoping there's a few left for me to do when he milks it dry.

Come to think of it, even though the housing market is supposed to be slow right now, I believe there are more homes for sale than ever in the DFW area that I live in. There are probably plenty of appraisals to go around.

There was plenty of high-paying appraisal work at the beginning of the housing boom, but the opportunity was obvious and the field was quickly flooded with new appraisers. Now that the boom has turned into a crash, there isn't enough work and many appraisers are taking any kind of work they can get and doing whatever it takes to keep their clients coming back.

When we hear stories about appraisers who are doing rapid-fire appraisals across a large geographic area, we have the same feeling as we would (if I can borrow an analogy) towards a doctor who was getting rich by doing five major surgeries every day. Hopefully your goals in life are higher than just making lots of money and avoiding lawsuits.

(Maybe, you meant to write that your buddy does 30-35 appraisals per month, not week. That would still be a busy schedule for thorough work, but they'd still have their pride.)

 

[Lee Lansford]

...At one point I was doing 30-40 drive-by's per day, just like everyone else I worked with.)...

"30-40 drive-by's per day"

What?

 

[Kris Martin]

I see the name, "cookie cutters", often. I was taught that there is no such thing as a cookie cutter. I still to this day have no true idea of what a cookie cutter appraisal is. It makes no sense to me.

I'd say it would be those houses that are all essentially the same that they throw together in subdivisions and build ten feet apart from eachother.

 

[KD247]

"30-40 drive-by's per day"

What?

Yep. Home equity loans appraised in the field, MLS book on the lap, with the forms filled out in pencil and photocopied to produce the final report. Before licensing, and done exactly as per BofA guidelines. (This was back in the day when we shared an office with loan agents. At 5:00 on a summer night, it was common to hear, "I'll give you an extra $200 if you can have the report in by 8:00 am tomorrow.")

Just a short while later, we started the process of incorporating computers. Do an inspection, drop off the film, write most of the report, and then pick up a frozen yogurt and the developed pictures while the dot matrix printer churned out the sketch. We could usually get back to the office before the printer was done.

The good batches of drive-by's were sporadic, but every once in a while it was like finding a vein of gold.