Working RE on The Great Debate on Appraisal Fees

[TerryRohrer]

No one made that assertion. If the AMCs or lenders want to provide that missing piece of the puzzle, that would be great. They seem reluctant to do so, so the question remains legitimate. That no one that knows has offerred the answer doesn't excuse your implication that there is nothing to see here.

 

[George Hatch]

I made an observation based in part on my own personal experience. And common sense. I worked on staff at a lender and got paid a fraction of the fee the borrowers paid out in total over the life of the loan. I worked for fee shops where I got paid a fraction of what the shop charged. Nor are these example unusual in any way.

YOU know the alternative cost to the borrower isn't $0 so I don't know why this is even a point of disagreement.

 

[Mejappz]

Remember Pete "Hanna" Fontana over TAF said REEVA would make an outstanding partner.

 

[shrubberyvaluation]

I think abolishing the split fee is the way to restore fees for the work that goes through AMC channels.

But since the split fee exists, why are the AMCs not volunteering to disclose the fee splits to consumers, and how much they keep? Some folks claim the consumer would not care - well if they don't care, then why not disclose the fee split to them ? ( a rhetorical question since the AMC's and lenders who use them would rather have the borrower in the dark. I doubt a lender even has to disclose to a browser that they are using an AMC- if so I am not aware of it.

An AMC typically prohibits an appraiser from attaching their fee invoice to an appraisal.

When a lender orders without using an AMC, typically the appraiser includes their fee and invoice, and the borrower sees it!

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I work for one AMC and the split always seems the same. It will say something like $600 for appraiser, $75 for the AMC, $675 to the borrower or something like that. The lenders have a say, if they are using an AMC that is taking 50%+ that is the fault of the lenders too, they have pull to tell the AMC to not play that game or switch.

 

[Tiffany Gibbons]

View attachment 92355

They won't make a dime if you don't work for AMCs. Fixed it.

 

[Tom4value]

I never put my invoice in the report. It is a separate email attachment. I did see that article in RE. That is part of why I don’t deal with AMCs.

 

[Tiffany Gibbons]

I made an observation based in part on my own personal experience. And common sense. I worked on staff at a lender and got paid a fraction of the fee the borrowers paid out in total over the life of the loan. I worked for fee shops where I got paid a fraction of what the shop charged. Nor are these example unusual in any way.

YOU know the alternative cost to the borrower isn't $0 so I don't know why this is even a point of disagreement.

When I worked for a fee shop AND in assessment, the firm or tge County paid for a good deal of my expenses such as Costar, CRS, MLS, license, part of my education, licensing, retirement contribution, mileage, payroll taxes, designations, e & o, health insurance, etc. That is the difference. AMC's do not pay anything, they just take part of the appraiser's fee for no reason other than because they can.

 

[George Hatch]

What are the annual laptop, appraisalware and data costs for a residential fee appraiser? It's not zero but it's also not 10% of the billings. And I never got paid for mileage or health insurance when I worked for the SFR fee shops. My point being that the fee shops added their own margins on top of their costs.

As for the added costs of commercial comps data and the admin/data entry factor, I got paid a significantly lower percentage of my non-res billings at the fee shops precisely because of those extra costs.

I'm not justifying the extent of the AMC splits but the appraiser conduct when working as subcontractors has been to work for fractional splits since before either of us came into this business.

 

[chad hampton]

Fees needed to be separated on the HUD - having fees buried in the appraisal was always worthless. I never understood why some appraisers pushed so hard at the state level to have that done. Most people I know look at every line of the HUD1 and ask questions about every part they are paying. There's a reason the AMC lobby fought that as hard as they did, and it wasn't because they were in favor of public trust or transparency.

AMC fees should have always been paid for by the lender. I was young and naive back when the gov't more or less created AMC's - that's how I thought this was going to be the way all along. But that was back when I thought business operated in an ethical and moral way.

 

[George Hatch]

Nobody on the appraiser side pushed bundled fees. Ever. And it's still the lender that provides those disclosures to the borrowers. They can still separate the fee in those disclosures if they want to. Either way, it isn't the AMCs which are withholding the information from the borrowers. Nor were the AMCs created by the govt. The lenders sought that solution in lieu of direct engagement, because their previous usage of MB-controlled appraisals was prohibited by the govt. For cause.

No matter how many times you repeat these untruths it won't ever change the facts.