Using MLS Photos

[DWiley]

When the MLS contains interior, front, back and side photos, your "view" of the property is greater than your "view" from the street.

Viewing photos of a property is just that - viewing photos. The requirement is to inspect the property, not photos of the property. The ASB issued an FAQ explaining that to people who were applying an "alternative" reality.

 

[Ahhhh Yeahhhh]

so aahhh yaa, are you sending out people to view the comps from the street instead of doing it yourself? i'm trying to understand how a comp can be inspected from at least the street without you being there.

No. I am not.

Its simple really. Lets say the house sits 100 yards from the street. Then the best you can do from the street is see what it looks like from 100 yards away. Right?

Now lets say you have 15 photos of every side and every room taken by the realtor's assistant on the day the listing was placed. Then those photos are superior to what you can see from the street. Therefore you have inspected the property AT LEAST from the street. What you cannot do is sit in your office and look to the west and say that you inspected the comp because you can't see it. But if you have a full deck of images that are from a closer perspective than the street then you have adhered to the SOW.

We need to get past the idea that you must drive by the comp. This is simply not a requirement, never has been. I am not saying that driving by the comp is the wrong thing to do, it is simply not a requirement.

If you are a client and you have two options.

Option 1, the appraiser drives by the comp, snaps a picture and bases the appraisal upon that information alone.

Or Option 2, the appraiser looks at all the available online photos including MLS, aerial, Google and whatever else is out there and bases the appraisal upon that information.

You tell me which option complies with the minimum and which one goes above and beyond. Clearly an appraiser could do both, but in an effort to establish the bare minimum requirement which do you believe would produce the more credible report?

 

[Meandering]

it says you must, at a minimum, inspect each comp from at least the street. viewing a photo on the MLS is not inspecting from at least the street, it is looking at a photo that is easily manipulated. the MLS photo will not show you the burned down house next door or the house serving as a junk yard or the industrial parkway entrance 2 lots down from the comp or the school across the street that floods the neighborhood twice a day with scream kids getting off buses or out of mom's cars blocking the road.

Slowly now.

The requirement is to view the property.

When you can't see the improvements, or a large portion of the subject property, from the private street, do you think your view is not being manipulated??

Is there so such thought as PRIVACY in the area where you work?

If the neighbor's house burns down the day after you were there, does it matter that it was still standing the day you where there?

and you're absolutely right that MLS photos will not show you the junkyard or the industrial park.

But being appraisers agree to geo competency, they should discuss those things. Lacking photos doesn't mean they are not there, and surely, you would see such things from terra server or google earth, or the tax maps, or even the flood maps.

When appraisers don't discuss the external influences, that is not a failure of roadside photos, and is not relevant to the discussion.

Stay focused.

If someone manipulates an MLS, it is still as valid as the online photos carried by Zillow and trulia and the other online sources, as that is what buyers see, that attracted them to a property in the first place.

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[DWiley]

No. I am not.

Its simple really. Lets say the house sits 100 yards from the street. Then the best you can do from the street is see what it looks like from 100 yards away. Right?

Now lets say you have 15 photos of every side and every room taken by the realtor's assistant on the day the listing was placed. Then those photos are superior to what you can see from the street. Therefore you have inspected the property AT LEAST from the street. What you cannot do is sit in your office and look to the west and say that you inspected the comp because you can't see it. But if you have a full deck of images that are from a closer perspective than the street then you have adhered to the SOW.

We need to get past the idea that you must drive by the comp. This is simply not a requirement, never has been. I am not saying that driving by the comp is the wrong thing to do, it is simply not a requirement.

If you are a client and you have two options.

Option 1, the appraiser drives by the comp, snaps a picture and bases the appraisal upon that information alone.

Or Option 2, the appraiser looks at all the available online photos including MLS, aerial, Google and whatever else is out there and bases the appraisal upon that information.

You tell me which option complies with the minimum and which one goes above and beyond. Clearly an appraiser could do both, but in an effort to establish the bare minimum requirement which do you believe would produce the more credible report?

Go ahead and ask Fannie Mae, the writer of the condition, if they agree with that Better yet, ask your state board.

 

[Meandering]

Viewing photos of a property is just that - viewing photos. The requirement is to inspect the property, not photos of the property. The ASB issued an FAQ explaining that to people who were applying an "alternative" reality.

Link please.

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[Meandering]

Go ahead and ask Fannie Mae, the writer of the condition, if they agree with that Better yet, ask your state board.

Assignment conditions.

And do you order REOs on UAD compliant 1004s??

 

[Peter LeQuire]

I agree with you, except that the SOW doesn't say " at a minimum, inspect each comp from the street". Why don't you take a second to look at the form and read what it does say. Then I will remind you that ... "if you can't understand the basic SOW on the form you are completing you should not be doing work that requires the form."

No, it doesn't. It says -


As an aid to comprehension: "The appraiser must, at a minimum: ....(3) inspect each of the comparable sales from at least the street,..."...

Torture and ignore it as you will. I just wonder if you would be so brave as to attach your posts in this thread to you next three applications to be accepted as an appraiser for a lender, a GSE, or an AMC. I wonder if you would attach them to your next application for E&O insurance. How about an application for a surety bond?

 

[DWiley]

Link please.

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FAQ 175 in current USPAP.

 

[CANative]

The words in green, from your post are your focus. The same focus Pete has, and the same focus that has been taught to appraisers all these years.

However, the point, which is pink font word.

is for at a minimum from the street.

As opposed to not viewing the property at all (This is below the minimum requirement to view the property from at least the street),

However, to view the property, to a greater inspection than from at least the street, would include, using a drone, or walking up into the yard, or an interior visible inspection.

When the MLS contains interior, front, back and side photos, your "view" of the property is greater than your "view" from the street.

Irrelevant. I do valuation services (not acting in the role of appraiser) which involves highly complex commercial property. Thousands in a year. For six years. I've only left my uncomfortable chair and visited a subject property less than 5 times. I'm very successful at this (measured by the number of times I've convinced another appraiser to see it my way. Appraisers who live and work within a mile or less of a property.) So I understand that one doesn't have to physically inspect anything to produce credible results.

But that's not the point. For GSE lending the expectation, stated in their forms and selling guides, is that the appraiser is going to make an observation of the comparable properties, in person, from at least the street. I supposed they don't say something like "the appraiser must drive to the comp and take the picture instead of viewing images from a website" because it is too stupid and it hasn't occurred to them that appraisers would rationalize not living up to the expectations with such BS.

You're mixing up the inspection discussion in USPAP with client/intended user specific requirements.

 

[DWiley]

Assignment conditions.

And do you order REOs on UAD compliant 1004s??

Given the certification on the 1004, the question is irrelevant.