Where Do You Think "geographic Competency" Begins And Ends?

[George Hatch]

Oh come on Joe
They need at least one appraiser to agree that out of state appraisers can be geo-competent.

That’s why there was a hissy fit over limitations early in the thread.


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How about you? Do you think you could competently appraise a condo unit in my town if you had access to all the info I have access to? .

 

[Joe Flacco]

I think "who's going to decide which appraisers are/aren't competent" is second only to the question of how they would go about making that determination.

Ah. See now you get it. You are not going to make that determination because if you make that determination that means you are geo competent since you know what the appraisal problem is. So you can't make that determination unless you are geo competent for that other 25% assignment.

 

[George Hatch]

It's a very big part of the competency question.

So who decides if the appraiser is competent for the specific assignment or not? Someone else at the national level that is also not geo competent? You have to be geo competent to know if you are competent or not.

The most common mode of the enforcement of appraisal standards, or any kind of rules or codes of conduct in any kind of endeavor, occur as a result of the individual choosing to comply. So before any outsider would get the opportunity to criticize an appraiser for getting in over their head the appraiser themself would first have had to make their own decision whether they could do the job properly or not.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but it seems to me that if we don't actually have defensible benchmarks for demonstrating one or more aspects of competency the only measure that's left is whether or not the workproduct itself was reasonable relative to its intended use.

I daresay that if you returned a reasonable workproduct on that condo I would have a tough time saying you were incompetent. In fact, I don't see how I would be able to support an allegation that you were incompetent without an incompetent;y performed workproduct. Or why I would have reason to do it.

 

[George Hatch]

Ah. See now you get it. You are not going to make that determination because if you make that determination that means you are geo competent since you know what the appraisal problem is. So you can't make that determination unless you are geo competent for that other 25% assignment.

You seem to be looking at this as being specific to appraisal reviews or desktop assignment performed by AMCs. I wasn't asking in those terms. I was aiming this discussion at "how do we define and measure this aspect of competency".

For example, I live in a suburb in SD County, but I do almost no work here unless some broker calls me up for some help. I couldn't really say the main reason I'm competent in this town is because I've lived here for 25+ years so therefore I "know" what's going on here. If I take an assignment here I will have to do 100% of the same steps I do in every other assignment I perform, from beginning to end. . So proximity ain't it.

 

[Joe Flacco]

You seem to be looking at this as being specific to appraisal reviews or desktop assignment performed by AMCs. I wasn't asking in those terms. I was aiming this discussion at "how do we define and measure this aspect of competency".

For example, I live in a suburb in SD County, but I do almost no work here unless some broker calls me up for some help. I couldn't really say the main reason I'm competent in this town is because I've lived here for 25+ years so therefore I "know" what's going on here. If I take an assignment here I will have to do 100% of the same steps I do in every other assignment I perform, from beginning to end. . So proximity ain't it.

It's not about proximity. I said this earlier but people know things about the neighborhoods they are familiar with and live and work in that is not obvious in the data.

What some of you guys are thinking is hubris. I don't know any other way to describe it.

 

[Joe Flacco]

It's either hubris or you guys don't think micro level factors that impact value are not important.

 

[George Hatch]

So do you think you could competently complete the condo assignment in my town?

As for hubris, that's actually part of the job description. It takes a lot of nerve to tell someone that based on your opinion it's okay to lend money or present that value to the IRS for taxation purposes.

 

[George Hatch]

It's either hubris or you guys don't think micro level factors that impact value are not important.

If it doesn't show up in the data - including the subject's own sales history - then how does it affect the appraisal?

BTW, the hubris allegation is just another variation of the Swedish Argument. Similar to "you're a pee-pee head so I don't need to engage your ideas".

 

[Meandering]

How about you? Do you think you could competently appraise a condo unit in my town if you had access to all the info I have access to? .

I’ve already answered that question in different forms already.

So what do you think is the value of a national license for residential work?

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[George Hatch]

(Sigh, this was not and still isn't a licensing discussion, you know)

Are we talking about in addition to or in lieu of the existing system of state licensing? The reason I ask is because I would expect many of the states to be more responsive to complaints than the feds.

I don't see any reason to go to national licensing at this point. I mean, clients here in the US have been using valuation services that were performed offshore for years.