Most Common Errors and Requests For Appraisal RevisionsExcerpt: Over the years, as the Chief Appraiser for a national Appraisal Management Company (AMC), my team has seen many unique appraisal assignments and experienced many interesting requests for revisions. Of course, we’ve seen our fair share of requests to provide an additional supporting comp or two, or to address how the subject’s opinion of value that is over/under the indicated Predominant Value of the Neighborhood impacts value, too.
While we see those common requests for revision regularly, the most common requests for revision, are of the much simpler or generic variety. Additionally, those requests seem to be easily avoidable with just a little more patience by the client in the ordering process and from the Appraiser in their own report production and QC processes. Here is a list of our “Top 5” revision request items that we see on a regular basis:
1. Correct the spelling of the borrower and/or seller’s name.
Note: This error revision runs at a 50:50 pace. Half the time the error was initiated on the customer’s part when they placed the order while the other half is an Appraiser input error.
Read 4 more common requests plus almost 30 comments (somewhat controversial article) at:
My comment: I have to carefully check names on every one of my non-lender appraisals. For unknown reason I have typos on names. People don’t like it when their names are misspelled ;>
Lender and AMC revision requests(Opens in a new browser tab) Covid-19 Residential Appraisers Tips on Staying Safe For Covid Updates, go to my Covid Science blog at covidscienceblog.com Click here to subscribe to our FREE weekly appraiser email newsletter and get the latest appraisal news!! To read more of this long blog post with many topics, click Read More Below!! NOTE: Please scroll down to read the other topics in this long blog post on scope creep, USPAP, hybrids, appraiser independence, mortgage origination stats, Covid tips for appraisers, etc. Read more!! → |
By Barry Bates
The appraisal client is always the intended user.
A lovely concept out in the ether somewhere, but hardly ever the case in practice. The client (who engages the appraiser) is a lending technician or AMC drone; the intended user is an underwriter, servicer or portfolio manager. (This assumes the fact that only about 10% of appraisals are ever done for anybody other than a mortgage
company.)
Pretending that they’re the same person (based on the legal concept of a corporation as a person, which facilitates all kinds of evil) allows the left hand, which is handing out cash, to avoid confronting the fact that the right hand is removing money from the borrower’s savings account.
USPAP is intentionally not specific
Finally, the old TAF argument in support of USPAP that its lack of specificity
is only the result of trying to avoid “micro-management” of the appraisal process is just what we former Army wiretappers used to call “cover noise”. It screens from hearing the fact that as it stands, USPAP can be used either to exonerate or
execute an appraiser on political motives regardless of the issue at hand. That’s
why more procedural detail is needed, not less.
Appraiser Judy fails the geocompetence test when she gets a citation from
her state for not having a subscription to local MLS. Yet when appraiser Willie
walks when he fails to check online sources or MLS after the property owner assures him the property is not publicly listed for sale. This same thread of delusion seems to run throughout USPAP, undoubtedly promulgated by crusty old MAIs. If any carbon-based life form tells you something, it’s okay to believe it’s true without any further investigation. Just throw in an extraordinary assumption, even though it’s invalid because it’s impossible or unreasonable.
Another reason for more specificity is the utter failure of the HVCC /Dodd-Frank AMC experiment. Instead of being coerced by a mortgage broker,
today’s appraiser is systematically coerced by onerous documentation
requirements, intimidating email, multiple requests for reconsideration and
arbitrary blacklisting. Appraisal quality is depressed by AMC expropriation of what
was once 50% of a normal appraisal fee. Moreover, residential fees in general
haven’t changed for 20 years.
2 GREAT ways to get into appraisal trouble. Tales From Barry Bates
Covid-19 Residential Appraisers Tips on Staying Safe
For Covid Updates, go to my Covid Science blog at covidscienceblog.com
Click here to subscribe to our FREE weekly appraiser email newsletter and get the latest appraisal news!!
Terrible Real Estate Agent PhotosJust For Fun!!Most Excellent Photos and Very Creative Captions!!
Very, very funny and weird!!
You just gotta see them! Cannot be described.
Covid-19 Residential Appraisers Tips on Staying Safe For Covid Updates, go to my Covid Science blog at covidscienceblog.com Click here to subscribe to our FREE weekly appraiser email newsletter and get the latest appraisal news!! To read more of this long blog post with many topics, click Read More Below!! NOTE: Please scroll down to read the other topics in this long blog post on USPAP, Appraiserville, mortgage rates in 2018, mortgage origination stats, Covid tips for appraisers, etc. |
By Barry Bates
Appraisal is not rocket science, but it’s been around for about 300 years and it worked pretty well when the principles were kept simple and the consequences for ignoring them were disastrous. It would also have been nice if individual lending institutions still had to hold their own loans into perpetuity.
The “Just Pap” is more unpopularly known as the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice, which came into being after the last big residential mortgage greeding frenzy (the failure of S&Ls in a 17%-mortgage-rate environment during the late 1980s).
Before your friendly author proceeds violently to eviscerate this not-even-very-well-meaning document, let’s get a minor but nonetheless irritating question off the table. Now you have to pay $75 for a copy of USPAP when, as a matter of public law, it should have been free to read. The solution? The Appraisa; Foundation put it out on the web where it’s free to read (uspap.org), but you can’t download it or search it effectively. So you still have to pony up the bucks.
My central thesis today, children, is still that a bunch of crusty old MAIs and soulless bank appraisers saw an opportunity in 1986 to create a bureaucracy that funds free trips to meetings where crusty old MAIs and soulless bank appraisers can assemble to get pleasantly drunk. This entity became The Appraisal Foundation, an organization designed to foster high appraisal standards that are written in weasel words even Donald Trump could circumvent.
It’s hard to know where to start; there are so many things wrong with USPAP. As an overview, suffice it to say that its structure appears to be designed so that over the long haul, most responsibility for bad loans can be offloaded to appraisers making less than $100K per year.
UsPaP – A Few More Obvious False Appraisal Assumptions
2 GREAT ways to get into appraisal trouble. Tales From Barry Bates
========================================
About Barry Bates
I have known him personally for over 30 years. He has a wide variety of appraisal “experiences” over the years, which he writes about. In his 42 years of appraising he has had different jobs, from a staff appraiser to senior management. He is lots of fun to chat with!
Barry would like to hear from you!! Send an email to barrettbates@gmail.com
========================================
Want to read more of Barry Bates’ controversial, humorous and really Out There comments? Subscribe to Appraisal Today monthly newsletter!!
========================================
To find out more about the newsletter, click the ad below.
Prices: 1 year subscription is $99, $89 for automatic renewals. Monthly and quarterly payments are also available (credit card only).
Posted in: USPAP
A National MLS Database?Excerpt: Instead of considering the consolidation of the governance and management structures of the MLS, thereby providing coast-to-coast cooperation among brokers, we should instead focus on MLS data and technology infrastructure, and support the movement toward a national database system.
This would create a vast information network available to application developers who, until now, couldn’t offer tools to agents and brokers without expensive and time-consuming customization for every individual MLS.
NOTE: THIS WAS PUBLISHED IN 1-18. THEY KEEPT TRYING IN 2020!! My comment: The author is vice president of Business Development for Realtors Property Resource® (RPR®), created by NAR. More info at www.narrpr.com . Very interesting and worth reading. Poor real estate data has been a problem forever. Non-standardized MLS data is a nightmare for appraisers. This database would be accessible to appraisers, CU, and AVMs I assume. Of course, we all know how accurate MLS data is…
Covid-19 Residential Appraisers Tips on Staying Safe For Covid Updates, go to my Covid Science blog at covidscienceblog.com Click here to subscribe to our FREE weekly appraiser email newsletter and get the latest appraisal news!! To read more of this long blog post with many topics, click Read More Below!! NOTE: Please scroll down to read the other topics in this long blog post on bath tubs, new appraisal forms,, mortgage origination stats, etc. |
CHANGE YOUR TEMPLATES!!, computer folders, etc.
RECORD YOUR 1/1/18 AUTO ODOMETER READING AND DON’T LOSE IT!!
For your mileage log. I also always go to my mechanic for oil change, etc. to get an “official” odometer reading, which the IRS prefers. I learned a lot after miserably failing my IRS audit of my “recreated” mileage log as I did not have one. |
|
Is Your Life Integrated? – George DellTools for work, tools for life.Excerpt: This time of the year for many is a time of reflection and hope. My reflection today is how some principles of our profession may be principles of a successful life; what those principles may be, and how they’ve contributed to my joy and sense of satisfaction and service.
Very interesting. Worth reading!!
My comment: I have known George for many years. He has appraisal ideas I have never seen anywhere else. He is a regular contributor to the paid Appraisal Today.
|
|
The Three Most Fascinating Homes In 2017Just For Fun!!Very unusual… and two are very low priced ;>
You just gotta see this 2 minute FUNNY video!!
Death and Breakfast, House with Big Cave, and Very Old Historic House
|
|
The Appraisal Standards Board has issued new Q&As for December 2017, dated 12/19/17:Note: personal property and M&E not included in the list below
– Communicating Assignment Results Without an Appraisal Report
– Workfile Requirements When Communicating Assignment Results
– Adding an Intended User
– Assignment Conditions versus Client Conditions
– Proposed Construction Employing an Extraordinary Assumption
– Proposed Construction Employing a Hypothetical Condition
https://appraisalfoundation.sharefile.com/app/#/share/view/seea70b822d24fa59? |
|
|
Digging into our drive to tunnel, bore, and head underground.
Just For Fun!!
Excerpt: The deepest tunnelers among animals, crocodiles that can burrow 39 feet down, cannot compete with us at all. Humans have traveled, in the deepest mine in the world, almost 2.5 miles underground (to say nothing of our boreholes, which go nearly three times deeper). The longest and deepest traffic tunnel in the world, the Gotthard Base Tunnel, makes it possible to cross the Alps in 40 minutes or less. The world’s major cities are criss-crossed by tunnels carrying water, sewage, wires, and people. Montreal has an entire subterranean city for its residents to navigate in the cold winter.
My comment: Fascinating!! I have not appraised any properties with tunnels, but I have seen many (and traveled through some) over the years. Railroad and mass transit trains, abandoned tunnels to nowhere, underground parts of cities (mostly abandoned), old mining tunnels, etc. I have seen (and appraised) lots of basements though, some way below ground ;> |
|
How much is Airbnb driving up home prices and rentsExcerpt: The researchers looked at rents and home prices in the 100 largest metro areas in the U.S. between 2012 and 2016. They found that a 10% increase in Airbnb listings leads to a 0.39% increase in rents and a 0.64% increase in house prices.
“That may sound minuscule, but between 2012 and 2016, rents rose by about 2.2% annually [on average in the 100 areas], so a 0.39% increase in that context isn’t very small at all,” says Dr. Edward Kung, an assistant professor of economics at the University of California Los Angeles and one of the study’s authors. The same is true for home prices, which rose by an average of about 4.8% annually in the 100 areas, he adds.
My comment:
Seems like Airbnb rentals are all over, such as my small city, not just in popular vacation spots. From an appraisal point of view, Airbnb rentals are tricky. More cities are regulating them. A lot more hassle than renting out an ADU for a year, for example. Tax issues for owners. To me, seems like it is business value rather than real estate value. Very confusing!!
|
|
Appraiserville from Jonathan Miller’s Housing NotesCheck out the topics below
– The Appraisal Industry Needs Better PR
No one knows what we do.
No one appreciates what we do.
– More on Tristar Bank in TN (you know, the one that shouldn’t be in the mortgage business)
– Loan origination graph 2006 to 2017
– The Next Appraisal Bombshell: Economic Growth Regulatory Reduction and Consumer Protection Act
Scroll down the page to Appraiserville, and maybe make a few stops along the way ;>
|
|
A Tour of the World’s Most Unrepentantly Modern ChurchesWorship at the altar of striking architecture.
Excerpt: Outside the town of Almadén, in central Spain, nestled on a scrubby hillside, there is a chapel. You’d be forgiven for thinking it is an art gallery, or perhaps a particularly modern-looking winery, or the home of an eccentric tech mogul. Planes of concrete fold into one another, creating elegant, severe triangular surfaces that frame a wooden doorway marked by tapering planes of glass. But inside there is only sunlight-and a cross. Known as the Valleaceron Chapel, it was designed for the property by the architecture firm S-M.A.O. in 2001.
Click here to see the very interesting photos. For more info and fotos, google the name and location of the churches (under each photo – copy and paste).
My comment: I have seen lots of very interesting and creative U.S. churches (religious buildings) in many places. I don’t really know why church congregations are willing to be “out there” in their architecture but I love looking at these buildings!!
|
|
China’s 50-Lane Traffic Jam Is Every Commuter’s Worst NightmareWhat happens when a checkpoint merges 50 lanes down to 20.
Excerpts: Thousands of motorists found themselves stranded on Tuesday in what looks from above like a 50-lane parking lot on the G4 Beijing-Hong Kong-Macau Expressway, one of the country’s busiest roads. Some are dubbing the traffic jam a “carpocalypse,” while others are calling it “carmageddon.”:
China is no stranger to these ridiculous traffic jams, especially on national highways. In 2010, gridlock spanning more than 74 miles on the stretch between the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and Beijing left drivers with nowhere to go for a staggering 12 days. That time blame fell on everything from road construction to broken down cars and fender-benders.
My comment: Check out the photos. Wow! One of my nightmares is getting stuck in a big traffic jam, but I never thought about one as bad as this…
|
|
A Mysterious Device RevealedExcerpt: On Monday, I distributed a photo (see below), which was taken by a western US appraiser at the subject property, and asked if anyone could accurately describe what this device is:
The property owner was not at the property when the appraiser was there, and the appraiser was frankly stumped as to what this ‘thing’ is.
By late afternoon Monday, the appraiser was able to talk with the property owner, and was told about this contraption. Meanwhile, dozens of appraisers wrote back with suggestions or positive “it’s a” statements.
My comment: There was a fun email thread on this topic. To sign up for Dave Towne’s emails, send an email to dtowne@fidalgo.net He has been writing a lot recently about hybrid appraisals (non-appraiser does the site inspection). Very controversial. I am working on an article for this topic in the paid Appraisal Today newsletter.
|
|