Webbed Feet
Elite Member
- Joined
- Feb 11, 2005
- Professional Status
- Certified Residential Appraiser
- State
- Canada
<.... snip.....>I didn't realize real estate could sell or be purchased at any point in time in any condition other than its "as is" condition. If the client is a "lender," the transaction is likely covered by a regulation to appraise the property "...in its actual phyisical condition." (What a coincidence).
Mr. Santora,
You keep coming back to this one all the time, many of us know the source you are speaking of. Perhaps our entire industry should inform all lenders we can no longer provide them any "drive-by" reports, or any Fannie form reports at all for that matter, as they are full of assumptions required by necessities in order to complete them. Even the age old standard assumption the real estate is not polluted, unless known to be otherwise, can later be found to be untrue. Interestingly, I have never taken my tools and tore a house apart during an inspection, or taken soil samples while I was there. You don't suppose I used any assumptions do you?
Find me a USPAP compliant appraisal that is 100% without any assumptions at all. Even the implied assumption that a third party inspector is not a con artist that doesn't even have an engneers degree. There is no such thing as a truly "as-is" appraisal report of any real estate in it's "actual physical condition" in our industry. If there is I'll show you an idiot that signed that report. The standards of our industry is we all use assumptions and all "base" our opinions on a lack of hidden conditions or on reliance upon third party reports that may in fact turn out to be unreliable. Whoever it was that wrote those words, "actual physical condition," was kidding themselves and others when they wrote them if the context of their use is how you insist on presenting it to be.
Webbed.