We're Back To The Beginning

[RCA]

I try not to get political but you mention the "S" word so here goes. Appraisers are part of regulation; deregulation equals you lose your job. Why anyone would vote against there own interest is beyond my self-preserving understanding, but it happens every two years as people are duped and sold on false promises by a used car salesman.

The problem is not the regulations, but how they are structured. There should never have been a direct dependency between the financial institutions and appraisers.

Software engineers know the evil of directly linking dependent components. A change in one often requires changes in the other. With large complex systems, with many inter-dependencies, you very often get a mess, a big mess.

So, it became a principle of software engineering - and well-engineered systems in general, to provide for loose coupling between components. In software we do this through "Dependency Injection" also knows as "Inversion of Control".
You might think of Dependency Injection as being like the automatic transmission between the engine and the wheels of a vehicle. Whenever the engine RPMs and the speed of the car (wheel rotations) reach a certain combination of ranges, given the current gear the transmission is in, the transmission knows to shift the gear to adapt to the changing conditions. With a transmission in place the engineer who designs the engine doesn't have to worry about the design of the axles and wheels - and vice versa. To describe how that works in software in an understandable manner would take some work, so I won't try to go that route.

Suffice it to say that what would have been better is something like this:

1. Between the financial institutions and the appraisers, you put a “dual” transmission that is essentially a recipe book of appraisal types, with a fixed set of options that the clients can choose from. And the second part of the transmission is a central ordering exchange that routes the orders to the appraisers, based on the recipe required, the difficulty and the rating of the appraiser.

2. There is an appraisal board, consisting of licensed review appraisers, either at the federal level or state level or both, that monitors and reviews the work of appraisers, assigns designations of competency, routes orders, handles enforcement and so on. In fact, it would be like a beefed up state agency that then takes on the added task of routing orders, handling order transactions and paying appraisers. This part essentially routes payments from the clients through to the appraisers.

3. The financial institutions would have to learn to make do with the given recipe book – but could of course ask for incremental changes via the appraisal board.

4. Appraisers are then free to focus on doing good appraisals.

- Well that should be good for starters, anyway.

 

[Rick Stillman]

1. Between the financial institutions and the appraisers, you put a “dual” transmission that is essentially a recipe book of appraisal types, with a fixed set of options that the clients can choose from. And the second part of the transmission is a central ordering exchange that routes the orders to the appraisers, based on the recipe required, the difficulty and the rating of the appraiser.

2. There is an appraisal board, consisting of licensed review appraisers, either at the federal level or state level or both, that monitors and reviews the work of appraisers, assigns designations of competency, routes orders, handles enforcement and so on. In fact, it would be like a beefed up state agency that then takes on the added task of routing orders, handling order transactions and paying appraisers. This part essentially routes payments from the clients through to the appraisers.

3. The financial institutions would have to learn to make do with the given recipe book – but could of course ask for incremental changes via the appraisal board.

4. Appraisers are then free to focus on doing good appraisals.

Good plan Bert. Spoken from a true software engineer that actually is REQUIRED to produce quality work. I did not do that type of work (I was a system administrator) but I worked shoulder to shoulder with those folks. They possess talents that are awesome to behold.

But. That's not the way the appraisal world works.

Who wants to rate appraisers? Not lenders, and sure not *most* appraisers. Most appraisers want to be good enough to do the job - barely - and fast enough to make as much money as possible. Cutting corners and allowing an appraiser to do 50% more work could indeed put them in an enviable financial position. Who cares about spending any more time than is absolutely necessary just to appraise the biggest financial investment of John and Laurie's lifetime? Do these people matter? Nope. They are one customer in a very long line of customers - just get as many done as possible and move on to the next one. Momma needs tires for her care you know. Two more jobs this week will pay for that.

#3 - the financial institutions are already slopping together loans as fast as they can, i.e. robo signing documents. You think they want to do one iota more work that has to do with appraisals? Nope. Let those AMC people deal with it - for free even! Cant' beat that deal.

#4 - Appraisers are free to focus on doing good appraisals. Sure. For how much pay? In actuality, appraisers will focus on making as much money as possible. John and Laurie get what they pay for - and too bad if they don't like it. More to do - more money to make - must make as much money as possible before we die. That's the name of this rat race.

OKAY then. Now that I've made my point - which greatly saddens me to do, by the way... I have a very interesting story you will like.

I had to have my car jump started last week. Luckily I have AAA. While we were waiting a few minutes for the battery to absorb a charge, the AAA guy asked me why I was in such a strange location. No need to go into details, but I explained I was an appraiser and I was working in that general area. He asked me if that was a good job. I said no it wasn't, but I am very experienced so I keep at it. He said he had a FEW friends that thought it was a good job, and they went into that business. But they were ALL sued and are no longer in the business. He asked if I had ever been sued. I said no, but I can see how it could easily happen if someone doesn't know what they're doing.

So I guess it DOES matter when you're working with John and Laurie, and they might not tolerate a garbage appraisal. This didn't happen just once, but several times this guy knew of.

The more I know, the more interesting things get. I have to search out some lawyers and get the inside track on this... This could be a new thread here ~

Keep on doing your software engineering Bert. That's an honorable field of work. Best of luck to you.

 

[Meandering]

The Light Horse Brigade was organized...but 670 against 10,000 (20 battalions?) Russians with cannon? You need more than organization. You need numbers we don't have. No bank in our small town and no RE office has fewer employees than there are local appraisers. We are outnumbered.

Yet history allows us to point to Thermopylae as strategic locationing and a conquest of will over numbers.

.

 

[Deleted member 130081]

The Light Horse Brigade was organized...but 670 against 10,000 (20 battalions?) Russians with cannon? You need more than organization. You need numbers we don't have. No bank in our small town and no RE office has fewer employees than there are local appraisers. We are outnumbered.

Maybe not because, this is not the same kind of battle. The numbers that could be effective are 1 and 80%. And, who says appraisers have to win the "war" decisively? How about just a couple of the battles? How about the battle lost to the AQB this year? The industry lacks balance. How will appraisers ever get the balance back? Got any other ideas?

 

[Mark K]

Some of you sound like IBM Selectric typewriter salesmen trying to band together to fight the personal computer and word processors.

Change is happening; adapt or become extinct. Its a fact that lenders (the people with the money) want the role of appraisers severely curtailed or eliminated. The business world revolves and evolves around the Golden Rule...the people with the Gold make the Rules. Hence, the role of appraisers in the lending world will become curtailed. If you can't see or refuse to accept that this coming (it has been for several years) all of the whining and crying about missing the train isn't going to bring it back.

There are very few jobs that haven't been affected/reduced/eliminated by automation, computerization, and/or the internet. To think that appraising is exempt is folly.

 

[Deleted member 130081]

Good plan Bert. Spoken from a true software engineer that actually is REQUIRED to produce quality work. I did not do that type of work (I was a system administrator) but I worked shoulder to shoulder with those folks. They possess talents that are awesome to behold.

But. That's not the way the appraisal world works.

Who wants to rate appraisers? Not lenders, and sure not *most* appraisers. Most appraisers want to be good enough to do the job - barely - and fast enough to make as much money as possible. Cutting corners and allowing an appraiser to do 50% more work could indeed put them in an enviable financial position. Who cares about spending any more time than is absolutely necessary just to appraise the biggest financial investment of John and Laurie's lifetime? Do these people matter? Nope. They are one customer in a very long line of customers - just get as many done as possible and move on to the next one. Momma needs tires for her care you know. Two more jobs this week will pay for that.

#3 - the financial institutions are already slopping together loans as fast as they can, i.e. robo signing documents. You think they want to do one iota more work that has to do with appraisals? Nope. Let those AMC people deal with it - for free even! Cant' beat that deal.

#4 - Appraisers are free to focus on doing good appraisals. Sure. For how much pay? In actuality, appraisers will focus on making as much money as possible. John and Laurie get what they pay for - and too bad if they don't like it. More to do - more money to make - must make as much money as possible before we die. That's the name of this rat race.

OKAY then. Now that I've made my point - which greatly saddens me to do, by the way... I have a very interesting story you will like.

I had to have my car jump started last week. Luckily I have AAA. While we were waiting a few minutes for the battery to absorb a charge, the AAA guy asked me why I was in such a strange location. No need to go into details, but I explained I was an appraiser and I was working in that general area. He asked me if that was a good job. I said no it wasn't, but I am very experienced so I keep at it. He said he had a FEW friends that thought it was a good job, and they went into that business. But they were ALL sued and are no longer in the business. He asked if I had ever been sued. I said no, but I can see how it could easily happen if someone doesn't know what they're doing.

So I guess it DOES matter when you're working with John and Laurie, and they might not tolerate a garbage appraisal. This didn't happen just once, but several times this guy knew of.

The more I know, the more interesting things get. I have to search out some lawyers and get the inside track on this... This could be a new thread here ~

Keep on doing your software engineering Bert. That's an honorable field of work. Best of luck to you.

You know, there has been some talk about quality here lately. Who does less, who does more, why they do it, how much it pays, etc. I think most everyone wants to do a great job. I think few people wake up and think gee, I hope I can do a super crap job today - at least not self-employed people. But as far as doing the minimum and such, it does in fact come down to the money. A client demand or expectation of higher quality will only be truly achieved when there is money there to pay for it. It's not lazy appraisers, it's the economics.

 

[Eli]

Some of you sound like IBM Selectric typewriter salesmen trying to band together to fight the personal computer and word processors.

Change is happening; adapt or become extinct. Its a fact that lenders (the people with the money) want the role of appraisers severely curtailed or eliminated. The business world revolves and evolves around the Golden Rule...the people with the Gold make the Rules. Hence, the role of appraisers in the lending world will become curtailed. If you can't see or refuse to accept that this coming (it has been for several years) all of the whining and crying about missing the train isn't going to bring it back.

There are very few jobs that haven't been affected/reduced/eliminated by automation, computerization, and/or the internet. To think that appraising is exempt is folly.

I understand but don’t forget risk. Risk is shifting big time. Where one door closes for a professional appraiser, another one opens.

 

[J Grant]

Some of you sound like IBM Selectric typewriter salesmen trying to band together to fight the personal computer and word processors.

Change is happening; adapt or become extinct. Its a fact that lenders (the people with the money) want the role of appraisers severely curtailed or eliminated. The business world revolves and evolves around the Golden Rule...the people with the Gold make the Rules. Hence, the role of appraisers in the lending world will become curtailed. If you can't see or refuse to accept that this coming (it has been for several years) all of the whining and crying about missing the train isn't going to bring it back.

There are very few jobs that haven't been affected/reduced/eliminated by automation, computerization, and/or the internet. To think that appraising is exempt is folly.

What is your personal plan to "adapt? "

You make a good point. However , there is another aspect to it. The lenders are actually not the people with the money...they are a gateway to the money, but most lenders are glorified salesmen, acting as brokers who sell the loans.. ."The people with the money", aka who fund, insure, and are invest are the US taxpayer as guarantor and secondary market investors/entities.

Therefore, even though lenders want appraisers curtailed or eliminated, they do not have the only voice about it. If they had the only voice, appraisers would have been out years ago. ( along with a lot of other safeguards )
I do believe the role of appraisers will change in lending and we face change from technology but not going extinct as fast as some predict.

The best way for appraisers imo to deal with changes in the lending market, is to tap into the new internet market of buying/selling/evaluation and develop it for appraisers. Create their/our alternate market and income stream.

It would be complacent to rely on the common sense aspect of of regulatory policy -Of course involvement is always a plus. The clarion calls for "organizing" has never worked in the past and those making the call put forth zero plan to make it work now. Nice idea but hoping it will save us not a good bet .

 

[keaw1]

Thanks guy , I feel the same way and sometimes when I get tempted to express it on this forum I read the *** ******. that tell you to leave the country and you should be true professionals like them and deal with it .Ect Ect Ect. Just don't pay attention to these morons . I am packing it in at the end of the month . I would rather retire and work as a starter at my golf coarse than deal with this insanity any more . Thanks Again.

 

[Mark K]

What is your personal plan to "adapt? "

.

About 10-15 yrs ago the warning flags were going up and I took the classes and worked to get the experience for r/w work and work for others entities like the DNR, local municipalities, court appointed work, and other avenues. This shift in lending appraisal work has not occurred overnight. Did anyone actually believe that all of the data mining that has been going on for years wouldn't eventually be used against us?

Mortgage work is about 10% of my work (local lenders) and none is for F/F and I've never worked for an AMC. I did about 2-3 appraisals on the UAD form for one local lender and told them to give that work to someone else. The day a form told me I had to call a 1.5 bath house a 1.1 bath house I wanted nothing more to do with it. LOL. I'm as stubborn as anyone, maybe more than most, but the writing on the wall was obvious to me.

I invested quite a bit of time and money to get out of mortgage lending appraising...not saying it was easy but that segment of appraising will continue to change. Appraisers can either sit back, watch and complain or they can take control of their professional lives. So far, whining about it doesn't seem to have slowed the progress towards our marginalization.

BTW, the people with the real money want us gone, not the middle men because they would be next.