Over these past two and a half weeks I've come to a few conclusions:

1.

I NEVER want to be an appraiser. Granted I'm passing my appraisal class with flying colors and I don't have to take the final, but our projects are really... well taking up more time than I anticipated. They're very good though. We've had to do a cost-analysis appraisal, sales comparison appraisal and now a income approach appraisal.  The cost and sales appraisals weren't too bad- we used the URAR (Uniform Residential Appraisal Report) for our sales comparison appraisal... but our income approach has to be a narrative report. There is so much to consider in appraisal and I give a big round of snaps to anyone who is an appraiser. It's definitely not my calling. Fabulous class, very good to learn the basics and know I can sit for the trainee appraiser license, but not for me.

2.

The media love to twist things and make them sound worse than they really are. The mortgage crisis for instance. Yes it's bad. Yes it'll probably get worse before it gets better.  But not every single city and area in the country is experiencing it as badly as other places are. Blacksburg isn't doing too hot- it's very hard to find recent comps for our appraisal projects. But the market isn't bottoming out here. People aren't losing their shirts. Instead there's at least two neighborhoods that I know of being built- Mt. Tabor Village and The Villages at Maple Ridge. 

Also our concealed carry on campus group. We had Eric Thompson, owner of TGSCOM, Inc who sold guns to both the VT and NIU attackers, come and speak to us. While he was not paid by us, is not affiliated with us and wasn't here to promote his business, media were still saying all that stuff. They were taping, just like I was, and I'm pretty sure they ignored his five minute speech on being here to support students' rights, not promote his business and say there should be a gun in every person's hands. 

3.

People are just generally ill-informed.

For instance, making broad references to college students as 'drunk, lazy, irresponsible college kids'. I'm going to make myself an example. While I'm still young at 21, I am not a 'kid'. I am a young adult, thank you. Of the 5 classes I'm taking, 4 are senior level classes. I work 16 hours a week. I'm in a sorority that takes up at least 10 hours a week of my time when we don't have a full schedule. I'm also in two other groups, one of which I have to deal with the media, and quite extensively lately because of April 16th. I don't go out and get drunk on the weekends. I don't have a kid running around. I'm going to graduate and get a job making good money. How is that 'drunk, lazy and irresponsible'?

The green movement. I'm not a treehugger, I don't care what happens to some random Brazilian frog, but I do think we shouldn't be as wasteful. However there are just some things that need a closer looking at before we barge right ahead and stamp our 'eco-friendly green' sign on it. Like compact fluorescent lights. Who on earth thought that was a good idea to make it mandatory? I'm sorry, but I really don't want CFL's at my property and worry about someone breaking them. Our entire campus has them... somehow I just don't see the good in making lights that have hazardous amounts of mercury in them is any better for the environment than the lights we already have. Also, recycling. The materials we recycle are usually downcycled, meaning they're not used as the same thing they once were. Paper isn't pulled from bottles so it can't be used again for bottles because it contains chemicals from ink. Same with newspaper, the ink takes much of the value from the paper. When they 'recycle' cars, they just compact it all down to one lump of steel- they can't take off the paint which downgrades the quality of the steel and they don't take out the valuable metal used, like copper.

Tech's VP saying they don't want 18 year olds running around campus with guns. A) you need to be 21. B) you need to be 21. C) anytime our name is out there, we say we support responsible, licensed carry with means you need to be 21.

4.

Ethics seems to be a wanning ideal in our culture. Granted, the media usually only tells you the bad stories of corrupt business men and women, but they do seem to be more prevalent now than they used to be.  

Predatory lenders. One of my teachers told a story about three weeks ago of hearing a predatory lender. She was in Panera working on her dissertation and overheard a mortgage lender talking to a woman in her 50's that was an obvious high risk lender. After lender and the woman talked about all she needed to do to bring up her credit score, she came to the conclusion that she could have her mother sign it with her. Seriously. You would think if we're in this major housing meltdown, some lenders would stop giving money out so freely. This is completely my own opinion, but it seems to me that greed is what fueled this whole mortgage crisis (and that can go for both the consumer and the predatory lenders).

While it isn't in the news so much, stories of appraisal fraud seem to be popping up all over the place. I think that is what largely prompted Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to up their appraisal standards.  

These have been floating around my mind for a while now, particularly the ethics point.