TAF head Calls Jonathan Miller a Liar

[George Hatch]

Several of the older AMCs started off as fee shops. Some of them expanded by buying out the larger fee shops in the larger towns across the nation. Hence the similarities between fee shops and AMCs.

 

[gregb]

The origin of some AMC's isn't relevant to the point that taking on a trainee has been rendered economically not viable due to AMC's skimming the fee.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

Yep...we all railed against the 'appraisal mills' 30 years ago, now we all embrace the AMC model instead.

 

[John Hassler]

Same for me. I was not trained by a relative. When I had my firm, we always had trainees, and none of them were ever relatives. We viewed it as a long term commitment to growing the business - and that meant the arrangement had to be beneficial to both parties, or the trainee would simply leave a soon as they got credentials of their own.

It is far easier to make training mutually beneficial in a firm with multiple appraisers, but the fact is most residential appraisers work as sole practitioners. The economics of training in a firm are very different than the economics of training in a one-person company. I do not mean that as any sort of criticism of those who work solo; it is just economic reality.

I, too, had a firm. We rented office space, had an office assistant, and trained folks. It worked well as there was sufficient work flow that assignments could be grouped geographicly to be completed for staff. The growth of assignments being placed through AMCs effectively crushed the appraisal firm business model, at least for conventional residential lending assignments. Why? Because the value associated with the appraisal firm name vanished. Because staff got approved by the AMC which made it easy for staff to go on their own. Because assignments could no longer be grouped geographically by the firm as they were assigned to the appraiser by the AMC.

But pre AMC it was good times.

 

[DWiley]

Because assignments could no longer be grouped geographically by the firm as they were assigned to the appraiser by the AMC.

That wasn't just an AMC thing. Direct lenders did it too. For years we just got orders to the firm and assigned them to staff, usually grouping them geographically. Then lenders changed - they would still send orders to the firm, but they would designate a specific appraiser in the firm had to do it. It was the reaction they (direct lenders) had from the scrutiny over appraiser selection. And, yes, that did change the business dramatically and we had to adjust the business as a result. It is very difficult to have a small firm under the current rules.

 

[gregb]

It is very difficult to have a small firm under the current rules.

And impossible to maintain a large firm in the appraisal lender market with the predominance of AMC penetration.

 

[chad hampton]

I don’t know how many people get into this profession that want to work for any sort of a corporation. Most everyone I know left corporate America or government, and prefer to work on their own. And that’s the way the trainee supervisor model should be set up. The goal of a trainee should be a 2 to 5 year plan where that trainee can go out on their own provided they want to.


The comment above about we all railed against the appraiser Mills out there 15-20 years ago, but that’s what AMC have become. Most people don’t even know that some of the large AMC‘s have hedge funds backing them, they could care less about the public trust that they are supposedly tasked with protecting.

 

[John Hassler]

That wasn't just an AMC thing. Direct lenders did it too. For years we just got orders to the firm and assigned them to staff, usually grouping them geographically. Then lenders changed - they would still send orders to the firm, but they would designate a specific appraiser in the firm had to do it. It was the reaction they (direct lenders) had from the scrutiny over appraiser selection. And, yes, that did change the business dramatically and we had to adjust the business as a result. It is very difficult to have a small firm under the current rules.

Agree except that I never experienced that with direct lenders. At most I would need to sign as Supervisor. Which was no big deal because every report was reviewed by someone in the office before it was delivered to the client. Even my own work, and I almost never disagreed with making edits because if staff couldn’t understand what I was attempting to convey how could the client.

But now conventional lending reports are almost exclusively done by one-man shops. No feedback loop, no convergence of ideas/approaches to solve problems, no comradely.

Now it’s cheapest/fastest wins and you waste time bidding, and you take pictures of smoke/CO detectors because we all know how many tens of millions in loan losses occurred before appraisers didn’t do that. And senior management wonders why appraisal outcomes are on par with AVMs.

 

[djd09]

bunton should apologize to miller...that wasn't right

 

[George Hatch]

The in-house appraisal departments paid splits
The fee shops paid splits
The AMCs pay splits

The splits vary in part due to the different combinations of what additional overhead and service is/isn't being included in the services being invoiced. And what the market will bear for each combination.

Not advocacy or an endorsement , simply an observation of fact.