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

[DWiley]

And what does that have to do with fast paced assignments in the real world ? If a lender or AMC assigns an appraiser to do an assignment in Memphis and appraiser does not have MLS in Memphis, is that lender or AMC going to give that appraiser time to drive to Memphis and sit in a class and join the board? And who is going to pay for It including the membership, especially if it is a one off assignment and that appraiser can't know if they will have any or many assignments in the Memphis area. Next day the desk appraiser gets an assignment next day in El Paso Texas- the lender or AMC will pay for them /allow time for that appraiser to drive to El Paso and take a class and join that board too?

It is preposterous, why not admit the truth that as it stands now, there is typically no available on demand access to local MLS for an out of area appraiser that might be needed to complete the assignment within a reasonable time frame and cost. Unless each appraiser plans to drive across regions and states and pay to join each MLS in the possibility they get an assignment there...

And? A company seeking to fulfill a large number of assignments in any given area would likely use a combination of dedicated staff, with appropriate state credentials and access to the local data sources, and local appraisers with the same credentials and data. And the staff appraiser and the local appraiser would have the same USPAP requirements. The question then becomes how does one objectively measure compliance with those requirements, regardless of who completed the assignment.

 

[J Grant]

And? A company seeking to fulfill a large number of assignments in any given area would likely use a combination of dedicated staff, with appropriate state credentials and access to the local data sources, and local appraisers with the same credentials and data. And the staff appraiser and the local appraiser would have the same USPAP requirements. The question then becomes how does one objectively measure compliance with those requirements, regardless of who completed the assignment.

Surely the company's legal team will figure out something addressing requirements/compliance.

These hybrid assignments certainly sound like "it takes a village"- the appraiser who values it and signs, a different person to inspect, then access to staff appraisers who have access to local MLS data in case appraiser doing the report lacks it.

Why not scrap the hybrid and have a local appraiser who has MLS and geo competence do the appraisal including inspection....rhetorical questions since hybrids are the being touted as the new "efficiency, as was EXOS and other Uber type evolving .

 

[DWiley]

Surely the company's legal team will figure out something addressing requirements/compliance..

I am not concerned with company policies. My primary concern is how about policies and rulings made by a state board on a case involving a hybrid might affect traditional work. You don't seem to think it is an issue, but I see the possibility for huge ramifications.

 

[J Grant]

I am not concerned with company policies. My primary concern is how about policies and rulings made by a state board on a case involving a hybrid might affect traditional work. You don't seem to think it is an issue, but I see the possibility for huge ramifications.

I believe state boards might have consumer and public trust issues more in the forefront while AMC's have profit more in the forefront regarding hybrids vs traditional work. But neither you nor I have control over what state boards do, though I assume if an AMC representative sits on a state board they might have some influence. Whatever the ramifications of state board decisions are, they are..I can understand why you may have a particular concern with it..

 

[Mr Rex]

If AMC's fees are a portion of the total appraisal fee, how is it advantageous to them to go to lower paying hybrid products? The idea is antithetical and defies logic.

 

[George Hatch]

I live in California, which measures about 740 x 220 miles and has something like 12% of the nation's population. I have known few appraisers with an exceptionally broad area of operations but most people seem to max out at maybe 100 or 150 miles from their doorstep. So in my state an arbitrary 30-mile limit would put a very real damper on what most appraisers here are *capable* of doing during the normal course of business.

Shoot, a few of the property types I appraise sometimes have comps that cross county lines, and not by a little.

So the applicability of the question isn't strictly limited to the hotbutton issues some of you are having with the big AMCs. These are questions that come into play on the more local level as well.

How many neighborhoods, outlying communities and even counties that are nominally in what you consider to be your AO are there that you haven't worked in over the last 3 years? Is your lack of recent exposure to those individual market segments a deficiency in competency that rises to the point of being reportable under the requirements of the COMPETENCY RULE?

 

[Meandering]

I live in California, which measures about 740 x 220 miles and has something like 12% of the nation's population. I have known few appraisers with an exceptionally broad area of operations but most people seem to max out at maybe 100 or 150 miles from their doorstep. So in my state an arbitrary 30-mile limit would put a very real damper on what most appraisers here are *capable* of doing during the normal course of business.

Shoot, a few of the property types I appraise sometimes have comps that cross county lines, and not by a little.

So the applicability of the question isn't strictly limited to the hotbutton issues some of you are having with the big AMCs. These are questions that come into play on the more local level as well.

How many neighborhoods, outlying communities and even counties that are nominally in what you consider to be your AO are there that you haven't worked in over the last 3 years? Is your lack of recent exposure to those individual market segments a deficiency in competency that rises to the point of being reportable under the requirements of the COMPETENCY RULE?

https://appraisersforum.com/forums/...e-appraisers-quit.183461/page-11#post-2192188




This really is a sad profession.

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[J Grant]

If AMC's fees are a portion of the total appraisal fee, how is it advantageous to them to go to lower paying hybrid products? The idea is antithetical and defies logic.

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Lower PAYING appraiser products, not necessarily lower cost to consumer in appraisal fee... Even if appraisal fee from consumer is reduced a modest amount , an AMC or lender, who uses staff appraisers, (nearly all the big ones do ) can get double or triple the work from their staff with hybrids, and thus dismiss part of their staff appraisers, saving money.

Lets say they pay average of 60k a year to a staff appraiser, and that person since they have to personally inspect can only do 8-10 a week. But now without having to inspect for hybrid, maybe they that same appraiser making 60k salary can do 40 a week- and the RE agent or home inspector who goes inspects will get a flat fee or a salary at a level one presumes will be profitable for AMC .

It will extend out to fee appraisers....they will "sell" this type of work to fee appraisers as we can only pay ( $75 or whatever it is), but you don't have to leave your desk and can do it in an hour....though since their staff appraisers can produce far more output with hybrids, they will assign far less to outside fee appraisers, who now are coverage for the work staff can't fulfill.

 

[George Hatch]

I haven't followed the hybrid discussions that closely so I don't know all the ins and outs of the issue. I don't know that there's that much overlap between "geographic" issues and interior inspection issues. I mean, someone who is local to a market isn't subject to being accused of not reading the local paper, not watching the local 5:00 news, not shopping at the same grocery stores as you or not sending their kids to the same school your kids go to - all the things that impart that "special knowledge" that the NAR says is oh-so-important toward contributing to "as your local realtor chick".

I was talking to another forum participant on the phone yesterday (whose first name isn't Danny. Or Tim), and we got to reminiscing about the Zaio controversies. For those of you who weren't here, their program included a local appraiser literally walking every neighborhood in a small geographic area to inspect and photograph - from the street - every SFR in that area and rate them for quality and condition and a couple other attributes, inputting the info into a tablet type device right on the spot. Then they'd physically update that database once or twice a year to maintain it.

All of this was done in advance. Then when one of the properties in their area sold they would already have a relatively recent exterior pic and property rating on file, so they have a comparable that's instantly ready to be loaded into a valuation that was operating off of that database. When an appraisal assignment came in for one of those properties, that database already had a recent exterior pic and rating for the subject and all of the comparables that would be compared to that subject.

So what we're talking about here is a database consisting of data that was physically inspected and rated by an appraiser and from the street. Meaning any AVM or appraiser who was using that database had a huge advantage over competitors that had not yet qualified their data to that extent.

Their program also included the appraiser identifying the different market segments in their AO, and then doing some model specification and model calibration to load into the company's AVM - which when combined with their enhanced data enabled that AVM to return a result as soon as a client ordered a valuation from the company. Instant gratification. IIRC their program also included that local appraiser going over the results after the fact and revising and/or validating the results.


There were a lot of controversies about the various elements of the business aspects of their program which are completely irrelevant to a discussion about AVM-assisted appraisals or appraiser-assisted AVMs, and some of us took issue about the manner and mode of the reporting and marketing elements the company was engaged in. But the underlying concepts of "inspecting" and rating the property that gets presented as a comparable and loading that data into a database for future use is still worth some consideration regardless of any other aspect of their operation.

 

[Renee Healion]

Appraisers used to read newspapers to stay current on zoning and other municipal issues. Now you can read minutes of those boards and commission meetings online in many jurisdictions.I do that when I have a concern, when I am familiar with the history of the place but not sure I am current. Very often this arises from a HBU analysis. Digital subscriptions are worthwhile to me for a larger picture, and are searchable. So it is not always the gladhanding sales person who reads the local paper (or only their own local paper).

On Zaio,as I recall, it was the fishy-sounding sales approach and the idea of owning a zone. And that the once-visited property information would soon be dated.