Fees and getting C/R vary widely – per www.AppraisalPort.com polls
As you can see above, appraisers say that 60% or more of their clients are paying C/R fees
As you can see above, only 9% of appraisers say C/R is under $350. Yet, I suspect that many are working for under $350 fees. Looking at the poll above, 60% or more of respondents say are working for C/R fees. Are most of them doing a lot of non-lender work, VA appraisals, AMCs who pay C/R, or direct lenders?
As you can see from the two polls, they show that 60% of residential appraisers say they are getting $400 or more per appraisal. If you’re not in the 60%, its time to change.
But, somehow the results seem strange to me. With AMCs at about 80% of the lender market and limited non-lender work available (as compared with commercial appraising) who are the 60% of the appraisers working for? If it is accurate, it means there are lots of clients paying C/R fees…
If you want to get higher AMC fees, you must:
1. Ask for higher fees and
2. Dump cheap AMCs
3. Only bid on jobs that won’t take much time and have few revision requests
Why don’t appraisers do this? Fear and Greed, just like all other businesses. Fear – afraid they will never get another appraisal job. Greed – want more money now. You have to overcome this to be successful in today’s very competitive AMC appraisal market. It is your choice to work for low fees and very demanding clients.
Next month’s paid Appraisal Today newsletter will have an article on how to overcome Fear and Greed and get higher fees.
Here’s the thing……. Customary is NOT Reasonable and Reasonable has not been Customary for a long time. These words have 2 distinct meanings. They should not be combined. What has been customary since 04/2009 with HVCC is a lower fee to the Appraiser, because a portion is now going to a third party AMC rather than being absorbed by the Lender in their in-house Appraisal Mgmt. division. With more and more competition among AMC’s today, fee pressure is going even lower. Combined with Fannie Mae’s UAD and Collateral Underwriter efforts, the value (quality, reliability) of our service has increased but the fess have not gone up commensurately.
In my market, a reasonable fee for a URAR with only the SCA is $400. Add a properly developed Cost Approach and a properly supported Opinion of Site Value and the cost of the report is now $600 or more. This is for a non-complex assignment because you still have to do the work and keep it in your file for at least 5 years.
So, Reasonable is $600+ IMHO. Am I getting a reasonable fee? Heck NO. Customary around here has been any where from $225 (CoreLogic) to $350 (some local Credit Unions). Again, I’m siting fees for non-complex assignments. Not that any AMC knows that they are asking for a Fee & TAT for a complex assignment. They think all of them are, lets just say it, easy. But there is nothing easy about 95% of the jobs I do. So quit asking for $400-$425 like that’s reasonable. Start asking for $600+ like a car dealer does. Your buyer (AMC) will eventually have to settle in the middle at $450 or more, which is where we want to be any, right kids?
I believe the first poll means that we only have 25% of our clients that pay the C/R. 75% of the clients pay under C/R. In the residential side and soon to come to the commercial side is the queezing of the fees. We all have bills to pay. Some have more bills and others have less. I get a call to complete a job that is not only a rush but a million dollar property in a under million dollar neighborhood. C/R would be at least $500. We used to get paid $600 for this no problem. Now they only want to pay $375.
I also work for a company that keeps lowering the fee they are offering. It is sent out to a few appraisers and 1st one the click and accept they get it. The fees have been going from $325 to $300 to $290 to $250. We are competing to the bottom. I don’t click on anything less than $300. We actually can tell them the fee we will accept although you never get the job. I work for as many AMC companies I can find. I work for good ones at $350+ and sometimes work for bad one at $300.
The only recourse is to have the state create a mandatory C/R. This is how it was set up to be regulated. Some states have a minimum. Other wise you get comments by the regulators “whatever they want to pay and you take the job is the new C/R”
We now have to check our own work by paying for a regression analysis on our neighborhoods to comply with CU. They won’t help us pay for that either.
We also need to have the state legislature to demand separate fees on the HUD-1. If no one know what my fee is how are they to complain. How can they complain about a very high AMC fee and low appraiser fee. Would they go somewhere else with the appraisal order. They won’t if they don’t know. The AMC fee is currently on the backs of the appraiser. It needs to be removed. Good luck out there.