I do place the blame where it should, on poorly written regulations. OMG. All I have ever tried to do in this thread is get people to call a spade a spade.
My solutions? Well if I thought we could get the laws changed, I would advocate for that, but I don't think our lobbying power is going to cut it. As DW pointed out, lenders are quite happy with the current arrangement and they have all the power in DC.
The other solution I advocate, though I am not convinced it would work, but advocate it all the same because I just don't see any other course, is to unionize.
Another solution, though I am still working out just exactly how to make it go, would be to form an appraiser cooperative AMC, that was open to every licensed appraiser in a region and that if successful in recruiting enough of us, could be leveraged.
One key to getting appraisers to unionize, or form a collective, is to first get them on the same page. Much of what I do here is an effort to that goal. For now, appraisers cant even agree on what got us here, let alone agree on what to do about it. I do have hope that will change, the longer we take it up the A**. What worries me are threads like these, where some appraisers appear to enjoy and prefer taking it up the A**, even going so far as to defend the forces (lol) behind (lol again).
All the above have been tried, none of worked (including the cooperative run Appraiser AMC) Some good ideas but they are too difficult to implement- on a positive note, I just got a direct order from a client who was using AMC's- a thawing of the trend.
I 'll share what I believe would have positive impact, and be rather simple to do- a public out reach website from appraisers esp geared toward borrowers, sellers , and RE agents ,, written in plain language (not appraiser nerd techno ), that explains to them AMC's, how they work, how much of the fee split they can take, and the methods they use to select an appraiser (blast email, bidding and the like ) The AMC's dont' have to be named, (lawsuit bait), nor any particular lender named. Just a bullet point list for borrowers to use when they apply for a loan, questions to ask the lender if they use an AMC, advising a borrower should choose another lender if the lender is evasive in answering the questions. Get up a fund , email appraisers to contribute to pay a good web designer to link the appraiser reach out to public website to loan rate sites, RE topic, house search sites etc. Pay to advertise on a couple of high profile sites if it brings clicks.
In addition the appraiser website could have general information about appraisal and how an appraisal can help a buyer or seller.
Public exposure of what is being done about appraisals, the fees, the stinky methods of selection of the bottom feeders, the negative customer perception/bad PR fallout, THAT is something the lenders understand, and can impact them to clean up their act about AMC's., fees, splits etc. We cant' get "rid" of AMC's, but there is possibility lenders can be motivated out of if nothing else, self interest about losing customers, aka fear of negative PR ,to see the AMC';s they work with pay better, or go to cost plus, or some lenders might choose to order direct as their own borrowers are no longer in the dark and now informed.
