Real Estate Advisory NIGHTMARE!!!!

[Mountain Man]

Hmmm, I guess many sellers in my area must read and belive him. That has got to explain the list price to sales price ratio of 87-94%. :lol: Along with a marketing time of 160 to 180+ days. The agents swear that most homes are not over priced :!: Nooooo way, that appraiser just doesn't know the market. :roll:

 

[David S. Roberson]

Some appraiser must have really p#^*ed this guy off somewhere down the line. Sounds like a personal vendetta to me.

 

[Jeff Horton]

Here is my letter. I don't normall respond but could not pass this one up.

Don't stop at the appraisal
I normally don't write the editor but this time I have too. Mr. Bruss's article "Don't stop at the appraisal" is so misleading to consumers and Mr Bruss is being totally irresponsible to write an article like this.

You would think that Mr. Bruss would get his facts straight before writing an article. He states: "The reason is most residential appraisers are not in touch with the current home marketplace. They work from recorded home sales prices, which often lag today's home sales by one to three months. Especially in a rising or falling home sales market, a professional appraisal can be too low or too high by thousands of dollars"

As an appraiser I never pass up the chance to discuss what is going on with Realtors, Mortgage Lenders and builders to get their take on the market. Almost daily I am researching the MLS system looking at sales data, marketing times and current listings. A large part of any good Appraisers job is to be aware of the market currently as well as the past. To say Appraisers are not in touch with with the current market conditions just shows Mr. Bruss’s ignorance of the Appraisal Profession.

Lets look at Mr. Bruss's scenario. Mr. Home owner follows this advice and plays around on the Internet AVM's web sites (just for fun of course) and then searches out and haggles with Realtors trying to find one he likes. Eventually he finds one he likes because he is telling him exactly what he wants to hear. (From experience I know there are Realtors that are only concerned with making the commission as high as possible and couldn't care less about the seller or the buyer) Then Mr. Homeowner lists his house with the agent or puts a sign in the yard himself. He finds a buyer willing to pay at or near the listing price.

Now Mrs. Home Buyer needs a mortgage. She shops around and finds a lender. After she passes her credit checks the lender takes the next step. They hire the “uniformed Appraiser”.

The Appraiser does his job and reports the estimated market value of the house. What happens next? The house was overpriced, the deal falls through and the appraiser is blamed. People like Mr. Bruss make statements that the Appraisers don’t know the current market. Therefore the appraiser must be wrong.

When in fact the Appraiser just prevented the uninformed Mrs. Home Owner from overpaying for the house. He also protected the lender in case Mrs. Homeowner defaulted on the loan.

I find it unbelievable that Mr. Bruss, who I thought was knowledgeable in Real Estate matters before now would give such advice to the unsuspecting public.

Jeff Horton
Horton Appraisal & Inspection

 

[Tater Salad]

Thanks for posting the link to this article. I stopped reading Bruss after his last foot-in-mouth article, where he told the woman who paid 5k over the list price of a home to "shop around" for another lender and/or appraiser when the first appraisal came in low. I shot him an e-mail that obviously ended up in his trash can.

What a putz :x

 

[Tim Hicks (Texas)]

That article is not worth the paper it is printed on. Obviously he is trying to form his own "shock writing" to generate publicity for his column and paper. He does not deserve any attention. He is not worth the effort.

 

[Austin]

Bruss wrote:

“They work from recorded home sales prices, which often lag today's home sales by one to three months. Especially in a rising or falling home sales market, a professional appraisal can be too low or too high by thousands of dollars.”

Bruss has a good point here folks. If you read the banking regulations, the question the banking industry poses to appraisers is: If the subject property had been exposed to the open market for the average marketing period for similar properties prior to the date of appraisal, then what would be the most probable price of the subject as of the date of appraisal.
The question Bruss incorrectly presupposes is: Guess or estimate what the property will sell for in the next 90 or so days. That is an entirely different question that may in fact be more appropriate to the intended use of the lenders but is in fact totally incorrect. The problem is the question Mr. Bruss incorrectly assumes would require an evaluation of the market and competitive offerings to answer his question resulting in a totally different process that as of the present are illegal appraisal practices. Appraisers are data analyst not soothsayers. Perhaps Mr. Bruss should get in contact with Mrs. Cleo and together, they being of like mind, can create a new industry.
This article just shows that MR. Bruss is totally ignorant of the most basic question, and that is: What is the question being asked by the bank regulators for the appraisers to answer. Bruss does not even understand the question, so it is no wonder he can’t come up with the correct answer.

 

[Jo Ann Meyer Stratton]

I am very sad to say there are a lot of appraisers that don't understand the question either! What would the existing (for appraisal purposes, even if is only proposed) propetry sell for on the effective date of the opinion of value with typical marketing techniques and exposure time for that specific market area and type of property?? That is why land/home packages (Fannie Mae's created sales) are not viable comparables.

 

[Austin]

JO Ann: Strange that you should say what you just said. This morning on the Business News, this headline appeared:

Conseco CEO steps down amid restructuring plans
INDIANAPOLIS (October 3, 6:17 p.m. EDT) - Gary Wendt resigned Thursday as chief executive officer of Conseco Inc., but said he would stay on as chairman of the insurance and finance company's board as it continues restructuring talks that could lead to a bankruptcy filing.

For those of you from NJ and south FLA Democratic counties, Conseco is the holding company that is responsible for the type financing that Jo Ann just referred to and that resulted in the utter destruction of the market for manufactures homes. Wonder where Mr. Bruss was when this was going on? Probably reading Tara Cards with Mrs. Cleo no less.