seriously?

This is kinda besides the point, but I've always felt that the appraiser getting the sales contract influences values more then anything else. Maybe less now then before when lenders could pick their appraisers. But still why should they get the contract?

I'll agree with Navarac about supplying comps. That is not influencing values if you are choosing good comps. You aren't telling the appraiser anything. He/she can throw those comps in the trash if they want to. Much like I do when doing an interior bpo for a short sale if an agent sends them to me.

Supplying the comps is being a good listing agent. As a listing agent you are working for your seller. You aren't working for the buyer, you aren't working for the lender, you aren't working for the appraiser. You are in your sellers corner trying to get them the highest and best price for their property.

Shana, you are so completely all wet that I don't know where to start. So I'll start with this:

USPAP and HVCC were invented because the typical appraiser is a hack who has no backbone and has always been beholden to the mortgage brokers who hired them. To get work, appraisers had to "make value". An appraiser who kills deals on a regular basis is an appraiser who doesn't work, and therefore doesn't eat. If you saw the lowlifes who have showed up to some of my appraisals it would make your skin crawl. That's why HVCC happened. Now the mortgage industry cannot hire the appraiser directly anymore. And you know who beotched the loudest about that change? APPRAISERS!

HVCC is a DIRECT RESULT OF APPRAISAL INEPTITUDE. You couldn't keep your house clean and as a result are being told what to do by the only organization less qualified than yourselves: the government.

Furthermore, most appraisers wouldn't know a buyer reaction if it bit them on the arse. I see appraisers making the same $4,000 adjustment for a fireplace in a $125,000 Ranch and $1,500,000 Colonial. Are you serious???? If you don't think I am going to give the appraiser comparables, then you've got another think coming. You can babble all you want about influence, but until I am convinced the appraiser of my deal knows how to select appropriate comparables, I will continue to give him those that most accurately reflect the market. Period. If you don't like that Shana, your option is to throw the comps away. But you meet me at a house, you are getting comps.

Now: The VAST MAJORITY of appraisers who I have ever met are HAPPY to receive any comparables I can offer and are willing to consider my market data and even some of my interpretation. I forgot more about value last week than many appraisers ever knew. So you WILL be getting data and you WILL be getting analysis. Period. If you are a good appraiser, you will consider all data, because it may be relevant despite the goals of he who gave you the data.

In fact, all appraisers should BE REQUIRED TO BE REAL ESTATE AGENTS for 3 years so it can be verified that they know how and why buyers react to the market. At this point they are, in many cases, attempting, and failing, to measure something that they know very little about.

At this point, many appraisers, who continue to have no backbone, are now sucking at the teat of AMCs, working for $150 an appraisal, and only still in the business because all the good appraisers left the field long ago to pursue commercial and/or private work. What is left? The absolute bottom of the barrel in the appraisal field. Those who are willing to work for nothing, because that is precisely what they are worth.

Sorry I am NOT trusting the appraisal profession to appraise professionally at this point. The profession is so broken it's not even funny.

Yes. No need to have a witness while eating the cookies????

Supplying the comps is being a good listing agent. As a listing agent you are working for your seller. You aren't working for the buyer, you aren't working for the lender, you aren't working for the appraiser. You are in your sellers corner trying to get them the highest and best price for their property.

"The proper care and feeding of an appraiser mandates that you must make his or her job easier by researching the local market thoroughly and making sure he/she has the similar sales he/she needs to make the appraisal work. If your house oversold the market and there are no comps, you are SOL."


Navarac, where did you get this "mandate"...is this a legal mandate, or did it come to you in a dream? ROFL

Nice, Shana, you ignored everything I said about HVCC being invented to address widespread appraiser fraud and incompetence. If you guys weren't so busy cannibalizing each other for lower and lower fees, maybe there would be a few good appraisers left.

I mean, what can I expect in the way of quality and competence from some guy who shows up in jeans driving a Corolla and claims that for $150: That he is going to perform a USPAP-compliant appraisal on my 2 million dollar listing.

THAT is why I have to supply the comparables. Not because I'm trying to influence him to appraise the house for more than its worth. But simply to allow him to do a competent job in the first place. Can I trust some $150 appraisal monkey to do the right thing? No. I can't. So he gets the comps from me. If he is a truly good appraiser, he already picked the same comps, and I can tell what the house is going to appraise for before the report comes back. But just in case he is one of the many glorified BPO jockeys who are willing to work for beans for some godforsaken AMC, I am here to make sure that at least the comparable selection portion of the appraisal is performed on a professional level. SOMEBODY has to do it...

Shana, hopefully you are a consummate professional and you are being paid a proper fee of $400-$500 for a USPAP compliant appraisal and none of this applies to you. But chances are........

And THAT is how we do business in New Jersey!

I don't think it's necesary to know if there are concessions so much either in an appraisal. I thought about that and I just can't see why they would need to know if sellers are paying closing costs or whatever. As according to our contracts in Colorado the appraisal just needs to meet the sales price or the deal is off. Now the appraiser does of course need to know what type of loan it is. But that can be given by the lender at the time of ordering.