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

[Joe Flacco]

Hopefully most appraisers familiar with the area would know to avoid it too, but I see reports all the time from appraisers that were obviously not competent to appraise a particular property, and almost never does the lack of competency have anything to do not being geo-competent.

Local appraisers not being competent is a whole another issue that needs to be solved. Okay that's all for me in this thread.

 

[Meandering]

View attachment 34409

The ol' red herring....it is funny how neither you nor anyone else in this thread made any argument that there should be national licensing, but she keeps bringing it up.

Just like pocket listings are underhanded, and it doesn't matter if the stupid seller does not want to be advertised on the internet.

What does any of it matter anyway?

As long as some have a copy of the agreement of sale and access to the MLS, you're qualified, competent, and can do it in 24 hours.


Still doesn't answer my original question,

How come,

Danny has the question,

George writes the poll,

And you get upset over the answers?

.

 

[Randolph Kinney]

You know, North Carolina has reciprocal licensing with the state of California. That means a letter from the state of California on my licensing history sent to the state of North Carolina, pay the fees, and I get an appraiser license issued and I am good to appraise in the state of North Carolina. No tests, no experience in North Carolina, etc. So how long will it take me to become geo-competent to appraise in Transylvania county, North Carolina population 29,000?

 

[Meandering]

Well that depends,

copy of the agreement of sale and MLS access, you're immediately competent.

Probably won't even get a stip either.

But sit in Transylvania County NC, and appraise homes in the areas you used to work in California, and how long before you are no longer competent there?

Or is it only USPAP that changes every two years, and the rest of the real estate industry cruises along without anything changing?

.

 

[J Grant]

How long Randloph- you can be competent to appraise there tomorrow per state license, but becoming geo competent? That can be any length of time and though one can go to work immediately, the learning goes on forever.

Sure, in theory, an appraiser can go anywhere, and with the right set of circumstances be able to do a competent appraisal ( fingers crossed they did not miss something ) The question as asked makes it easy to say yes, I could competently appraise anywhere given the set of conditions ( assumption).

But to believe that set of conditions would be present in the SFR regular assignment example used is absurd. Direct order lenders use a panel of local appraisers and AMC's use their panel/staff, both want the report back fast, and MLS is regional $ membership subscription. Yet for this assumption, a mythical client sends an appraiser to a far off location for an ordinary res assignment ,allows lots of time, and appraiser magically has access to local data ( MLS) .Poll result allowing multiple choices is overall answer that geo competence not needed (143% + out of 100% but who's counting..)

As with so many of the changes , a proposal starts out with one set of assumptions and ends up dropping the assumptions for a lower threshold. The recent change in lowering education/training is an example that rode on the debate about college degree and subsequent comment period ensued, followed by ( surprise) a change that stakeholders wanted. .

I envision this will follow a similar path. No, I don't believe one poll will result in a sinister chain of events (to head off the "paranoid" allegation) but this is a widely read forum with many appraiser members; a guinea pig area to float an idea and collect responses from appraisers , responses that can be appropriated by anyone reading. What starts out assuming the appraiser goes personalty to the far of location property will become an appraiser at a desk anywhere USA with local person doing the inspection.

 

[George Hatch]

I've been appraising in my region for 33 years and my scope of practice dwarfs that of most of the participants in this thread. I turn down assignments that I am not competent for on a regular basis. I am not 100% here. But I am competent to appraise some properties, so I stick to what I know I can get through.

 

[J Grant]

It's not for nothing that CoreLogic has been buying up local MLS across the nation- though access now is still paid local member subscription, including for appraisers, perhaps in future Core Logic can enable an appraiser only access to some form of nationwide MLS info. \f course this would only work to stakeholder advantage if appraisers were allowed to appraise from a desk anywhere in the nation, using local person to inspect , (bifurcated) Think how many a week a staff appraiser could pump out then! If work slows down locally, the appraiser can jump in to do reports in any state or region where it is busy. No more down time, ever! A shortage in Colorado? No problem! Let appraiser in another state do it, use some local RE agent to inspect.

Recognize it or not, appraisers are paving the way by saying geo competence is not needed, regardless that they said it with a set of assumptions in place that will no longer be there in practice.

 

[J Grant]

I've been appraising in my region for 33 years and my scope of practice dwarfs that of most of the participants in this thread. I turn down assignments that I am not competent for on a regular basis. I am not 100% here. But I am competent to appraise some properties, so I stick to what I know I can get through.

That is good, but that is you, personally do you think those who have the mindset of appraiser coach who love to tout how fast and "efficient" they are, pumping out volume ( using who knows knows what shortcuts), will care about competence, geo or otherwise? These are exactly the kind of appraisers who will say they are competent to appraise anywhere, and the entities that use them can't wait to train a new crop who won't let a little thing like geo competence slow them down. Raised and trained on data rather than knowledge, awarded assignments on scorecards using speed as a metric, they don't have to time to understand assignment specific or geo competency is, let alone develop it.
.
Bifurcated will keep appraisers at the desk. Once the argument is made a local person inspecting gets adequate results and it will be forever pointed out that appraisers themselves said geo competence is not needed!, it opens a door that can't be closed.

 

[George Hatch]

How long Randloph- you can be competent to appraise there tomorrow per state license, but becoming geo competent? That can be any length of time and though one can go to work immediately, the learning goes on forever.

"Licensing status" only means the individual has met the requirements of that license. Randolph won't be competent to appraise a subdivision home in his neighborhood until he understands how that market is functioning. Whether you think that includes an expectation that he sends his kids to school there or knows every broker or joins every caravan or reads the local newspaper (and how many people do any of those things in their own neighborhoods) or if maybe that process maybe doesn't include all the NAR talking points about how the idiot realtor chick "knows" her market even though IRL she's wholly incapable of identifying even a single comparable that you can use in your appraisal.

Sure, in theory, an appraiser can go anywhere, and with the right set of circumstances be able to do a competent appraisal ( fingers crossed they did not miss something ) The question as asked makes it easy to say yes, I could competently appraise anywhere given the set of conditions ( assumption).
But to believe that set of conditions would be present in the SFR regular assignment example used is absurd. Direct order lenders use a panel of local appraisers and AMC's use their panel/staff, both want the report back fast, and MLS is regional $ membership subscription. Yet for this assumption, a mythical client sends an appraiser to a far off location for an ordinary res assignment ,allows lots of time, and appraiser magically has access to local data ( MLS) .Poll result allowing multiple choices is overall answer that geo competence not needed (143% + out of 100% but who's counting..)

I asked the question in the abstract because i'm trying to suss out the underlying fundamentals, which are significant to the extent that if a concept is true it will hold up consistently across a wide range of specific situaitons rather than just a couple of them. In general, the specifics tend to be an expression of the fundamentals.

Once you come to an opinion on the concepts then that better enables sussing out the limitations for any particular situation, right? If analyzing a 10-yr sales history for the neighborhood itself AND a separate analysis of the long term sales history for the subject's market segment helps you to better understand the more recent sales and what they're doing, then it almost doesn't much matter why they're doing it. You're not appraising why values are currently trending up or down, or why this neighborhood is doing better than that one - only that they are.

As with so many of the changes , a proposal starts out with one set of assumptions and ends up dropping the assumptions for a lower threshold. The recent change in lowering education/training is an example that rode on the debate about college degree and subsequent comment period ensued, followed by ( surprise) a change that stakeholders wanted. .

I envision this will follow a similar path. No, I don't believe one poll will result in a sinister chain of events (to head off the "paranoid" allegation) but this is a widely read forum with many appraiser members; a guinea pig area to float an idea and collect responses from appraisers , responses that can be appropriated by anyone reading. What starts out assuming the appraiser goes personalty to the far of location property will become an appraiser at a desk anywhere USA with local person doing the inspection.

Now you're talking about the business of appraising, not how to appraise. The two aspects are completely separate or isolated from each other, but they also aren't synonymous.

 

[J Grant]

GH-Now you're talking about the business of appraising, not how to appraise.

The business of appraising does become how to appraise , unless one wants to go out of business. if clients/users allow bifurcated appraisals, that is how those properties will be appraised, and if clients/users allow any appraiser from a desktop to appraiser anywhere USA , that will be how those properties are appraised.