To keep up on what is happening in appraisal businesses, mortgage lending, USPAP, etc. , Plus humor and strange homes, sign up for my FREE weekly appraisal email newsletter, sent since June 1994. Go to Home on the right side of the menu at the top of this page or go to www.appraisaltoday.com
Sign up in the Big Yellow Boxes
I regularly write about appraisal business management issues
in my paid Appraisal Today monthly newsletter.
$99 per year or (credit card only) $8.25 per month, $24.75 per quarter or $89 per year.
For more info, go to https://www.appraisaltoday.com/products
www.appraisalport.com poll.
My comment: Rush fees are another way to make more money during this boom time, to save for the downturn when AMC fees will drop.
The most critical appraisals are those for purchases, which can require rush fees to get appraisers to drop their regular refi business and do them.
I am hearing about widely varying AMC fee increases from around the country, depending on the local market supply of appraisers willing to work for AMCs I guess. Savvy AMC appraisers reply to low bids with an increased fee. After a few weeks, sometimes their fee is accepted. Local appraisers I know only work for a very few select AMCs, if any. But, when business slows way down, they take more AMC work. I also hear from appraisers in the same market with widely varying fees that they will accept.
What do I do? Rush fees stress me out too much as I am very backed up. I just put new appraisal requests in my queue, which is typically around 60 days. Sometimes I will do one faster if it is a special circumstance and/or a referral from a local real estate agent, but I don’t require a rush fee. When I used to do appraisals for purchases, I always gave them priority but never charged a rush fee. I am definitely in the minority!!
What are Customary & Reasonable fees when residential fees are changing?(Opens in a new browser tab)
Run your business like a business. Some AMCs and Lenders still treat us like employees, with demands. They wanted to stop paying employees years ago, and got rid of many. Now they will have to live with what the supplier wants. As a young man, I worked in a few industries, such as steel, sewer pipe, etc.. When a customer said they needed something in a hurry, companies felt it was not right to move someone ahead of the line, unless it was profitable. Then, everyone has the opportunity to “pay more” to go to the front. There was always a large fee, or extra price per foot, or pound, for a Rush Job.
If an appraiser is booked up with appointments and someone wants to pay the appraiser extra to do an appraisal ahead of schedule, the appraiser either has to bump an existing client to do the rush job or work extra hours. Bumping an existing client from an agreed upon turn time is not a good business practice so the only other alternative is to work extra hours. Just like any other comparable trade, a reasonable compensation for this is time and a half or double time. (50-100% increase). Anything less is a real bargain for the rush client and an unfair sacrifice for the appraiser.
We should charge more for our time. We cant charge for our experience, which is unsat. I also go one further. If you pay up front you go to the front of the que.
Will you please stop saying fees will go down, when the business goes down, number one you do not know that for sure and we as appraisers have worked very hard to get these fees up and by you saying this it just gives them an excuse to do so. And I truly do not believe that the AMC’s will ask for less money from their bank clients so, in turn you are just encouraging them to pay less and then they make more. And you should refrain from making such comments when you are not in the AMC world like the rest of us…..Mr. C
Sounds like Mr. C has not been in the business very long. I have been doing appraisals for 45 years and I can tell you that it is a fact, that when appraisers don’t have enough business, a lot of clients will ask them to take lower fees, especially the AMCs.
I have been appraising for 12 years and you obviously did not understand what I was writing, may be 45 years is long enough…Mr. C
I do charge a rush fee if the lender wants it within a three or four day window. Generally I charge and additional $100 depending on the complexity of the assignment. Most lenders will pay it. I then push that order to the front but never ever make my other lenders wait an extraordinarily long time because of it.