No one wants to work

[EddieB]

Those are Catawba River. I live right off of Catawba river in Hickory. Why does low pool keep you from appraising them?

Why did I think you were in like Minnesota or somewhere like that.

 

[residentialguy]

Why did I think you were in like Minnesota or somewhere like that.

I was. Moved

 

[EddieB]

I was. Moved

Catawba Co nice area. Foothills of the Blue Ridge. Glad to have you

 

[Elliott]

Waiting for Godot, more like Waiting for Garage Door.

So went in and spoke to the garage door people. They gave me a 'new' install date of October 3. I'm going to talk to the owner tomorrow about a better alternative. In the time I've been waiting for the garage door, the house has had a new shake roof, painted trim, and new K6 gutters (which are super).

One of the best live dramas I ever saw was when two of my high school friends did "Waiting for Godot" on stage.

 

[sputnam]

It's nonsense. They are trying to pay fees I used to get back around 2005. We are in 2022, with high inflation, and they want to pay 2005 fees.

When the AMCs and lenders start bickering with you over nuts and bolts - it is not because they are concerned with quality. They are just trying to put the appraiser down in hopes of getting less static over lower fees. Generally speaking, they just want a rubber stamp.

Anybody who has been an appraiser for any length of time should know this - unless they are stupid enough to let their clients pull the wool over their eyes on these issues.

Some AMCs are worse than others. Some of those guys are downright bastards, - in their personal behavior. I could name names.

But, it's rather hopeless, I suppose. You need to look around and find other work. There are indeed plenty of jobs out there that provide a decent steady income with benefits, such as a truck driver.

Once again, you demonstrate that you like to assume without asking or knowing the facts. A lot of AMCs are currently using the cost plus model. The AMC i referred to requests appraiser bids, submits the bids to the Client, the Client selects the appraiser (sometimes with guidance from the AMC), and the AMC tacks on their fee. The point was about appraiser refusing to bid... often not even having the courtesy to respond with a decline.

Every business... including AMCs and appraisal firms... that is well managed tries to have the lowest costs that are consistent with the standard of quality for the product or service. Bringing in new revenues can help your profit... but, cutting a dollar in cost sends a dollar directly to the bottom line.

Everyone can do as they choose. I simply don't bicker. You ask for a bid... I decline or bid. If I bid, you can pay my fee or find someone else... there is no further negotiation.

 

[RCA]

Once again, you demonstrate that you like to assume without asking or knowing the facts. A lot of AMCs are currently using the cost plus model. The AMC i referred to requests appraiser bids, submits the bids to the Client, the Client selects the appraiser (sometimes with guidance from the AMC), and the AMC tacks on their fee. The point was about appraiser refusing to bid... often not even having the courtesy to respond with a decline.

Every business... including AMCs and appraisal firms... that is well managed tries to have the lowest costs that are consistent with the standard of quality for the product or service. Bringing in new revenues can help your profit... but, cutting a dollar in cost sends a dollar directly to the bottom line.

Everyone can do as they choose. I simply don't bicker. You ask for a bid... I decline or bid. If I bid, you can pay my fee or find someone else... there is no further negotiation.

Well, you are certainly "... assuming without asking or knowing the facts." I understand the "general" mechanics of how this works. It is not that difficult.

So, the AMCs are largely caught in this vice between their clients *lenders") and vendors (appraisers). But, given the pressure from the clients to accept their fee structures, they are then faced with the problem of finding appraisers who will accept accommodating fees.

So, yes, you can have some sympathy for AMCs. They are incompetent fools, just like most appraisers. They have tunnel vision. They lack foresight. They accept the world for what it is because they are spineless - just like appraisers.

But on top of that, through my occasional encounters with AMC personnel, I find they have Personality Disorders, Overweight Problems, Hunched Backs, and so on and so forth. It is a big MASSIVE system that is difficult to do anything about.

The FACT REMAINS that they are what they are, although they are not necessarily the original cause of low fees. AMCs were created not for the good of the appraiser - but really to monitor and control lenders and appraisers to prevent certain kinds of systemic problems that eventually lead to widespread problems in the mortgage industry. That sounds good. But keep in the back of your mind, that this major restructuring which occurred with the onslaught of AMCs was engineered by idiots who were not capable of considering all of the details, factors and cause-effect relationships that our common-sense tells us do in fact exist.

Appraisers need to kick back, not be lap dogs like some members on this forum.

 

[George Hatch]

The days when appraisers were only competing for assignments with a handful of other appraisers on that lender's approval list are long gone. The online marketplace is both impersonal and unrelenting when it comes to exposing the same limited number of assignments to the larger group of vendors. As the volumes dry up the combination of the tech and the increasing competition among the lenders can only result in an ever-increasing level of competition among the appraisers. There's no picket line that appraisers can use to coerce and intimidate their peers from crossing, and in the end every appraiser is going to put the needs of their family before the needs of their peers.

Tragedy of the commons. So to speak.

 

[RCA]

The days when appraisers were only competing for assignments with a handful of other appraisers on that lender's approval list are long gone. The online marketplace is both impersonal and unrelenting when it comes to exposing the same limited number of assignments to the larger group of vendors. As the volumes dry up the combination of the tech and the increasing competition among the lenders can only result in an ever-increasing level of competition among the appraisers. There's no picket line that appraisers can use to coerce and intimidate their peers from crossing, and in the end every appraiser is going to put the needs of their family before the needs of their peers.

Tragedy of the commons. So to speak.

I am working a new website which I will use to post price models for cities in the SF Bay Area. These can't actually be used by anyone to directly appraise any property. But, they can serve as benchmarks for appraisals. It means that appraisers can refer to these benchmarks as a kind of safety net for their own adjustments.

But, I have come to the conclusion, that no one would in their right mind publish a model that could be used for direct valuation. That, it turns out would require publish the identities of specific properties (comparables) with a scaled grade for conditon, qauality an d so on. Yes, that is not advisable, - homeowners would line up with complaints and you would be sued to death - even if you could so some such thing. That's because the MLSs preclude publishing property identifieers.

However, in any case, in the future, appraisal will become more streamlined - and more controlled. The smarter appraiser will be able to adapt for sure. Many will be left in the dust.

But, IMO, for the profession to survive, then what will be done to make it worthwhile to pursue, will be done. -- And appraisal will have stiff competition from other professions for talented individuals.

So, appraisers will organize eventually, one way or another. For the common good. Those that don't fall into such an organization will starve. Simply put.

 

[George Hatch]

Could be.

But....
So far all the movement I've ever seen in what appraisers normally do in their day-to-day has been driven by their users - what their users request and expect of them. Not by what the appraisers prefer to sell to those users. Maybe that'll change going forward, although TBH I don't see why it would. The lenders demonstrate every day what they will and won't pay for.

In my view, appraisers can/will adapt to whatever the effective minimums are among their users (that 'effective minimum' generally being less than what the lenders SAY they want). The limitation doesn't exist as such on our end. Its the lenders and other client types that make those choices.

 

[RCA]

Could be.

But....
So far all the movement I've ever seen in what appraisers normally do in their day-to-day has been driven by their users - what their users request and expect of them. Not by what the appraisers prefer to sell to those users. Maybe that'll change going forward, although TBH I don't see why it would. The lenders demonstrate every day what they will and won't pay for.

In my view, appraisers can/will adapt to whatever the effective minimums are among their users (that 'effective minimum' generally being less than what the lenders SAY they want). The limitation doesn't exist as such on our end. Its the lenders and other client types that make those choices.

Well you can't include me. I really don't accept appraisals if the fee doesn't meet my standards. Well, I might - if for some reason I just want to appraise some property out of interest. But, if say I get an order in for an appraisal that states a fee under $500, I won't bother to bid on it. I almost never decline anything if the fee is below my published minimum. If I were to get a request for $1600 on some nice property -- I probably would accept. If not, I would decline with a reason. My stated minimum with most AMCs is $700-$800. Nowadays, if I see a request for a bid, with no proposed fee, I just assume it is going to the lowest bidder - and don't bother.

Now I could respond with a note that I could accept the assignment, but only at some fee higher than that proposed. But, I don't see any reason to do that. I would be absolutely right to assume there are plenty of other appraisers around to do it for the stated fee - or less.