Remember that Movie.....Can you tell me the name??
So here is my BEEF and I want to hear from Realtors, Other Appraisers out there and Yes, Lenders too! I have been appraising since 1993. I have Seen it all, the highs, the lows, but Now I am seeing RED!
When we send an appraisal to a lender it is reviewed by their reviewers and or Underwriters who then make the final call on whether they accept our report or want revisions or in some cases they call for a Field or "Desk Top" Review of our report by another appraiser.
FIRST Problem..those reviewers and underwriters are not licensed Real Estate Appraisers. So you have someone who does not have the expertise and training that the appraiser does, telling them that they do not agree with their adjustments or opinion of value, for any number of reasons. Or they ask you for even more commentary explaining every single step we take in the process of developing our opinion of value. Or they ask us to review several more comps just to make sure that our value is indeed accurate (What most people do not know is that we review many, many more comps before we hone it down and finally chose the BEST comps out of all of those we spent time reviewing)
Second Problem . Most of the time the reviewers and underwriters DO NOT READ the entire report and they are asking us for things that are CLEARLY in the report. This is a waste of our time and this only DELAYS closings.
So if a lender says the appraisal is delaying the process......Don't always believe that because it may be the lender giving Appraisers a laundry list of questions to answer which takes alot of time, only to have to refer them back to our reports where we have addressed their issues. If we have to review more comparables (which most of the time are NOT comparable and that is why they were not included in the report in the first place) Guess what, we don't get paid for our time doing this......Well for me that is going to CHANGE! Next time I get a request to review more comps. I am billing them for that time.....I feel I deserve it. Time is money in our business.
Back in the Heyday when loans were closing left and right.....What we heard was "I am thinking of a number and you better reach it or you will not GET more work from us" Then after the great decline or Depression as I like to call it, lenders were doing a 180 and scrutinizing every little aspect of our reports ad nauseum. to just recently where they are now slowly but surely trying to push our values up again.......Have they not learned their lesson from before? YES markets in many areas are in recovery mode, but we are not going to report a value over what the Market dictates. Yes we look at supply, demand, pending sales, closed sales and listings, but if the value is not there, it is not there.....PERIOD! Remember from one of my last Blogs. Appraisers DO NOT determine values. The MARKET does, we analyze and report it.
We had a lender recently go over with their appraiser panel, their New Letter of Engagement (which is essentially an Appraisal Order .... For most lenders this is one page; providing us with the subject address, contact information for borrower or seller, due date for report, whether it is a Conventional or FHA loan and that is it) This lender's Letter is 14 pages long! It oulines a step by step process for how they want the appraisal completed which basically covers the requirements for every single investor they have and they all have different requirements. So now our reports which are already several pages long will be even longer with even more commentary (Which they do not read) and loans are going to be delayed even longer! It is total MADNESS!
So my battle cry to lenders is this....Come on other Appraisers I want you to join in on this! Realtors too if you Agree with our Plight.
1. Get reviewers who have at least the same amount of experience as the appraiser you are reviewing...Tired of taking orders from someone who has never been in the field doing their own appraisal work.
2 READ our entire reports before you ask us a dozen questions and make us jump thru a million hoops only to find that our report was indeed complete and accurate where value was concerned.
3. We are CRAZY busy right now. Give us more time to complete the reports. Maybe fewer errors will occur if we have more time to develop the intensely detailed reports that you require of us.
Now I know some of you are saying HEY there are alot of BAD appraisers out there who need close supervision and who are pulling "BAD Comps". Well many times that involves appraisers who are doing appraisals for AMC's for a cut rate fee. I am a firm believer that you get what you pay for!
4. Respect us Please... Do not treat us like children by the kinds and types of requests you ask of us. We are highly trained in our business plus we take 14 hours of continuing education every year. We must take USPAP courses every other year and we must follow USPAP in the completion and reporting of our appraisals, which sometimes is in direct conflict with what the lender may want. So we must educate them on our obligations if we want to KEEP our licenses.
Now that I have vented. We as Appraiser need to stand up for ourselves and not take it any longer. We need Respect, we need consideration and we need not take this madness any longer.
Thank you very much for your time. ...Trust me when I tell you, I am not the ONLY One out there who feels this way!
Have a great weekend everyone.
To those lenders that I work with who do not play these games THANK YOU!!!!!!!!! You know who you are and I have to say I am blessed that the lions share of my business comes from Lenders who do Respect our Work! I am blessed but I want to stand for all the other Appraisers out there who may not be so lucky!
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