It is important to remember that Lenders don’t ultimately want quality reports. If they did, then alternate valuation methods like AVM’s and “no appraisal at all” programs would not have skyrocketed in the build-up to the financial meltdown. When their risk increases, so does their desire to have recourse to manage losses. That’s why the single largest asset of a licensed/certified appraiser is our liability. It’s not free to us and it should not be free to them.

Pressure on appraisers has always existed. It is inherent to what we do and cannot be stopped. Is it realistic to cut off communication with the originator, borrower, seller, realtor, contractor, attorney, divorcee, etc.? The end user of an appraisal almost always has some intended goal or outcome for an appraisal so how do you conduct business, yet be contracted to be independent and not act as an advocate? Do we need a radical new system to control CPA’s when a customer presents a box of receipts and states “this is how much tax I want to pay”?

It is amazing to me how many people (appraisers included) don’t realize how many checks were in the system already. Moral integrity aside, financial and legal liability, lender approval, maintaining a license, and professional reputation were more than enough to keep me on the straight and narrow.

We established our appraisal firm 17 years ago. We refuse to accept appraisal orders until HVCC has been declared unconstitutional. We currently use our former appraisal webpage: http://www.investsmart.com as an advertisement against HVCC. We invite everyone connected with the real estate (except banks) to sign the online HVCC petition. We also invite any appraiser with guts to join in organizing a national appraiser’s strike. AMCs could easily be forced out of business by appraisers who have the conviction to show a little backbone.

Yes, its a rather brutal scenario that has been foisted onto residential appraisers. One of the problems is that we are by nature an easy prey because most of us work independently and so we have no collective power.

One might think (or hope) that the Appraisal Institute might wield some resistance to the abuses of AMC’s. However, having gone to a recent seminar by the Appraisal Institute regarding HVCC and its effects, there doesn’t seem to be much recognition of just how bad all this is. In fact, the guy presenting the seminar was all excited that the latest Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac guidelines state that professional designations for appraisers should be considered as a reflection of expertise. However, when it was pointed out to him that AMCs could care less if an appraiser is an SRA or anything, he was non-plussed. The thing is, since the Appraisal Insitute is more commercial appraiser oriented, until this kind of stuff hits commercial appraisers they probably are not going to do much about it.

The sad fact is that in trying so hard to prevent appraisers from being coerced on values by mortgage lenders, they have opened the doors wide open to appraisers being totally abused on fees and time. Guess who owns these AMC’s? The banks and it is totally legal. So now they can say that they employ independent appraisers who are licensed and/or certified.

There are a few of us that still attempt to actually do a fair valuation ( you sound like one them), but look at what most AMC’s are promoting. Since they take a huge chunk of the fees and they are insisting on such quick turnarounds, they are “encouraging” appraisers to be doing 5 or more appraisals per day. Now any appraiser that was decently trained knows that such a volume is guaranteed to result in sheer crapola.

If any of the agents out there wonder why they are gettting such lousy appraisals these days (besides the out of area factor), they need to understand that a lot of the work is being performed by appraisers who are under enormous pressure to crank out “forms,” because that is all that appraisals are to the banks and the AMC’s. It doesn’t matter to them that the appraiser can be sued or that the appraiser is certifying that the work was performed to USPAP standards and guidelines. No, what is being done now is high pressure jobs to meet ridiculous turn around times for low fees, but hey, the appraiser is not getting beat up to meet a value, so we’ve made a lot of progress, right?

Hopefully, it is not violating this blog to show a link to another site….. check out this interview by the chief appraiser (who incidentally is a SRA) at LSI, ……….. this interview pretty much sums up where these guys are coming from.

http://www.tavma.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=77&Itemid=32

I did a refinance job the other day for a guy who had some inkling of this situation. He told me that he was being charged $500 for the appraisal, and when he asked the lender for a breakdown of where that money was going, he was told it was unavailable. I couldn’t tell him that I was getting $180 for doing the assignment…. I had already been feeling totally screwed by the AMC scenario, and this just totally drove it home…..

From what I understand, in October of this year, the FHA will no longer accept appraisals from non-certified appraisers. And apparently the OREA has recognized that the majority of complaints it gets involve appraisers who are licensed, but not certified, and is considering doing away with the License designation. So it is possible that some of these people out there are going to go away……… Of course, considering the power and influence the banks and AMCs now wield, they will probably fight to keep their large labor force intact….

Anyway, agents need to know that chances are the appraiser they are dealing with is drinking a lot of Starbucks and Red Bulls trying to do a lot more appraisals to make ends meet. And this has nothing to do with the downturn of the economy, but the sheer greed of the banks who own most of these AMCs.

Good luck.