If you have followed along you know that FNMA and FHLMC will be required to use a third party appraisal "company" on all loans purchased by the GSE's effective 2009. Some lenders are already requiring this - Flagstar, for example, to whom we sell a couple of loans per month - and we'ver already uncovered what is bound to be a huge comedy of BS when this goes in to full swing.

Getting a contract with a national appraisal dispatch company seems to be to appraisers what getting a government contract is to closing attorneys. You can take the best, most customer service oriented closing attorney in your area and let the be awarded the HUD contract and almost overnight they become the most horrendous, arrogant, and brainless bunch of babbling flops you've ever dealt with. Let them lose the HUD contract and a couple of years later they're back to good again. I've seen it happen far too many times not to call it a constant.

It seems that many appraisers treat being dispatched by a national dispatcher the same way. When we order an appraisal directly it costs our client about $325 to $350 and we generally have it back within 3 days. If any updates are needed in underwriting we email or fax the appraiser and get the updated appraisal back usually within a couple of hours. Not with nationally dispatched appraisers.

In our most recent PITA moment we ordered an appraisal from Flagstar's happy little approved company on Thursday, April 10th with a due date of April 15. We hadn't heard anything by April 16th so we called the company which could provide us no information except to say the appraiser had been given the order ... on the 14th. By the 17th our client still had not been contacted to allow entry to the home so we started our every 15 minute calls to the national appraisal dispatcher until we got results. Finally on Friday the 18th the appraiser calls our client AT WORK and says, "I'm at your property and I need to get inside." WTH? Right NOW??

I'm anxious to see how long it takes to get the LEGAL DESCRIPTION corrected using the ACTUAL legal description instead of the bogus paragraph of obviously concocted information used on the actual appraisal that our client paid $450 for which from any direct appraiser in our market area would have cost only $325 for a better job. The appraisal we got is not the worst I've ever seen but for that price and that amount of time I do expect it to be perfect.

I write about this not because it happened once nor has it happened twice but over the years it has happened many times when we use a nationally dispatched appraiser. One company does stand out about the rest but their prices are 25% higher than going direct so we've spent more time over the years developing relationships with approved appraisers in every market area where we operate.

So once again a REGULATION to "FIX" what already broke is costing the end user in time, money and level of service. Way to go you scumbucket pieces of hog poopie who caused this to become a mandate.

HOW TO FIX IT

You, appraisers, you're the ones to really fix it. Demand your dispatches immediately. Demand customer service from your dispatch company. Not much you can do about the higher prices and that really stinks but WORSE service for the same product isn't going to help your cause. Stand up for your industry and tell national dispatchers if they are going to get into the business the services must be BETTER for a HIGHER PRICE not crappy like we usually get.

I am not throwing off in individual appraisers but I am biting down on the OPERATIONS DIRECTORS of these national companies. If you don't do a better job I'll open a national dispatch company and show you how to do it right. (lol as they say) 

EDUCATION BEATS LEGISLATION EVERY TIME. Get your clients, friends and family members to a LENDER RUN home mortgage seminar as soon as possible.