Review for Valocity/IndyMac Made Me Mad

[Michigander]

Actually I should have written that your due diligence should not be dictated by your fee. My bad.

 

[Brad Ellis]

Greg,

No offense at all. Most AMC will not know anything about your geo area so you have to be the one to tell them. If they do not "get it" then just say no. And, I have only once had a problem with a firm continuing to call me/fax me after I asked them to not call/fax- that firm was Steele Software Systems (if memory serves). But, once I called the owner, it stopped.

John,

With due respect, it is not just the AMCs doing that to you- it is ALL of your competition. I am not sure where in NoCal you are but you guys are not price fixing up there, are you???????????

Brad

 

[Tudor]

Greg,

No offense at all. Most AMC will not know anything about your geo area so you have to be the one to tell them. If they do not "get it" then just say no. And, I have only once had a problem with a firm continuing to call me/fax me after I asked them to not call/fax- that firm was Steele Software Systems (if memory serves). But, once I called the owner, it stopped.

John,

With due respect, it is not just the AMCs doing that to you- it is ALL of your competition. I am not sure where in NoCal you are but you guys are not price fixing up there, are you???????????

Brad

Not in NoCal, Arizona is a different state. The fees I have seen quoted by AMC's and the fees I have heard of on this forum are far less than what FHA dictated as fees 10+ years ago. Not really sure what "price fixing" has to do with this, all appraisers know what the typical range of fees are and I am sure AMC's do to.

 

[Deuce of Spades]

Valocity was horrible to work with. I did some stuff with them when I first went out on my own until they made unreasonable demands. The last job for them was new construction and they provided me the wrong contract and wrong pricing (buyer did a second contract with upgrades added). Report turned in and it did not meet the contract price (you know the one they did not give me). I refused to change anything until they provided me with the contract which took them a week. Still would not up the value (stupid upgrades $$$$ for faucets and paint plus the mkt was turning). Dropped like a hot potato for not playing ball.

 

[CANative]

I am not sure where in NoCal you are but you guys are not price fixing up there, are you???????????

Brad

Tim Hicks doesn't know where I am either even though I keep telling him I'm between Cloverdale and Ukiah.

 

[Webbed Feet]

<snip>
Now I wrote the specs for the scope of work- personally. Why additional comps? Because I was just plain old sick and tired of seeing the field reviewer get lazy and just agree with value when it was pretty clear that the original was wrong. <snip>

Accepting or rejecting the assignment and the fee paid is between you and the agent company ordering them- in this case Valocity.<snip>

I get them in daily. About 10-20% are probably just garbage; hence the AMC asking you for either clearer data or more data. Remember you are producing this for a client that can be thousands of miles away.

Brad E.

Mr. Ellis,

With great respect and regardless of USPAP supposedly taking precedence over fees... However, we live in a society where you get what you pay for. I understand your company may be paying top dollar, but your "agents" are not. Place the entire situation into intense pressure for the absolute rock bottom fees with the most insanely fast turn times.... and you can expect more and more rock bottom quality to the product or service as a result. From fewer and fewer service providers with any assets to bother protecting. In this case, appraisal or review. Then additionally, if any entity allows it's "Agents" to withhold payment, as a form of compliance blackmail, that activity gets around to those few remaining service providers who might have provided a quality product regardless of the fee. But perhaps those providers now will not provide anything at all without payment up front. When your "Agent" will not agree to that, you get what is left over for service providers.

Webbed.

 

[Deuce of Spades]

I understand the need to outsource the appraisal process for a large bank like IndyMac; it make economic sense. I say this because I made a living for a long time selling out sourcing solutions in the IT world. Economically it is less expensive to have to deal with the hires and fires of staff as business fluctuates and there is something to be said for economic balance. In other words it is economically feasible for you to be billed for 20 outsourced empolyees that work only part time (that are on my books full time) than for you to pay them. The savings come in the way of taxes, benefits and unemployment benefits. The outsourcing company makes money due to economy of scale.

However, my clients in the IT world paid a premium for releasing their headache. In the long run it was beneficial to them both financially and business wise. My company provided a 'value add' service that benefited those companies. Outsourcing is not always a bad thing, the client had their coverage when needed and my engineers almost always had work, whether it be with client A or client B.
What is the worth of that 'value add' to remove your head ache? Would it be enough for the bank to pay a $100-200 premium for the outsourcing? From my understanding of how the AMC practice works, the borrower can not be charged more that a customary fee for the appraisal. So if the customary fee is $350, and that is paid to the AMC, is there any additional fee paid to the AMC for removing your headache and their value add? Or do they get it all passing only a portion over to the appraiser.

I think where the breakdown is occurring is that while there is a perceived value add for the bank, the appraiser is paying for it, hence outsourcing becomes even more economical to the bank and the appraiser is just out of luck. Would you be willing to pay that extra $$$ for real quality work or do you all ready and we just don't see it.
I do realize that we all make choice to work for an AMC or not, it is our economic decision but I have to wonder what drives the bank's decisions.

 

[The Warrior Monk]

I don't know much about AMCs, because I don't work for them, but I think we have to wait and see about the value-added and savings portions. We've had a real estate bull run in my, and many other, area that has been straight up for the past decade. There has to be a down cycle to really calculate the savings, or losses.