Posts Tagged appraisal fees

Source: Steve Costello at www.fncinc.com. Published 8-4-15

This month I want to discuss three recent polls dealing with how much time it takes to complete appraisal reports and how many hours you end up working to get them all done. In the first poll, we asked “On average, how many “interior inspection” appraisals reported on a 1004 do you normally produce in a week?” This poll was very popular with 4945 responses. There was a clear winner with the response of “4-6 appraisals per week” pulling in 44 percent of the vote. The next most popular answer of “7-9 appraisals per week” took quite a drop and only pulled in 20 percent vote. The last two available answers were those at either end of the scale and they were almost tied. A few appraisers really crank out the orders because 16 percent responded that they do “10 or more” appraisals per week. On the opposite end were those representing 17 percent of the vote who only complete “1-3” appraisals per week. My guess is that many of the people in this group may be semi-retired but like to keep active in the profession while making some extra money. Of course, any individual’s volume is going to depend a great deal on their specific geographic area and general complexity of their assignments.

In the next poll we asked: “On average, how long does it take you to complete a 1004 interior inspection appraisal report including inspection time (excluding driving time)?”

This was another popular poll with 4836 responses. The winner here was “4-5 hours” with 39 percent of the vote. Not far behind was “6-7 hours” with a 29 percent share of the vote. From here the numbers dropped substantially with 13 percent of appraisers going with the response of “8-9 hours”. That is really getting to be painful when it’s taking that long to finish each assignment. The most extreme answers both received the lowest number of votes. “More than 9 hours” was the choice of 8 percent of the appraisers with the final 10 percent going for the answer of “2-3 hours”. My guess is that the appraisers in that final group really have their system down to a science and fully utilize all the available technology.

Finally, we asked, “On average, how many hours per day do you spend working on appraisals and appraisal-related business?” This poll was the most popular of the three with a total of 5451 responses. The winner was “9-10 hours” with 37 percent of the vote. The second most popular answer with 23 percent pushed the level up to “11-12 hours”. The old standard workday of “7-8 hours” came in a distant third gathering only 17 percent of the vote. Not far behind were the 15 percent who really “burn the midnight oil” working “13 or more hours” per day. Only 9 percent work “6 hours or less” each day with most of these appraisers reporting at least 5-6 hours worked per day. It’s clear, and not at all surprising, that most appraisers are working very long hours there days.

My comment: Appraisers are working long hours now because appraisal volume is way up. If you are willing to work for low AMC fees you can get as much work as you want. I would have liked to see how many hours per week. I suspect many appraisers are working 6-7 days a week. I did, during previous boom times. These polls do not include time spent on revisions. I have some data below on that. Plus, the amount of time returning update requests – answering phone calls and emails.

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 From the November 2014 Appraisalport newsletter

On average, how much time do you spend making and delivering requested revisions on any given appraisal?@ We had a total of 4870 responses to this poll. Nearly half (48%) of those chose the response of A10-30 minutes.@ This would seem about right for most minor to moderate revisions. Many must be making pretty minor revisions because the second most popular response with 24 percent of the vote was under 10 minutes@. Another 18 percent are having to take a bit more time and went with the choice of A31-60 minutes.@ A smaller group of 7 percent is having to invest some real-time to make the revisions and picked the response of over an hour.@ The final 3 percent selected the answer of AI  to make revisions.@ I=m not sure if that means they are doing an amazing job on every report and never get a request or if they just refuse to do any revisions!

My comment: Lots of appraisers complain about excessive revision requests, but this poll indicates that appraisers aren’t spending much time on them. The time may have increased since 11/14.

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How often have you received revision requests that have no contributory value to the report, or were already addressed in the report commentary?” Sept 7 poll – www.fncinc.com received 3,273 votes

A few months ago, an AMC sent out an email to all their appraisers saying it was requiring that they include a copy of their work file with the appraisal.

Within a very short period of time after it was sent, I saw the email posted to a Facebook group. There were 356 comments posted. It soon “went viral” spreading all over the Internet. The AMC backed down.

Within the past week, another AMC sent a very rude email response to an appraiser who declined applying for a staff position at the AMC. I saw it posted on a Facebook group. It also went somewhat viral, although not as widely distributed as the workfile email.

Read more, including the original email, in the very interesting Jonathon Miller’s Housing Notes – August 21 edition.

Click here – it is near the bottom of the page.

What does this mean? In the pre-Internet days, often it would take weeks, or months, for appraisers to find out about FHA and Fannie changes, for example. Now it is available within a few minutes.

What’s the downside for appraisers? Even if you post to a group that requires approval, your postings can be obtained by others. Group members can send them to anyone. This is a definite problem if do court testimony. A while ago an attorney asked me how many appraisals I had done in the past 6 months as I had a broken ankle. How did she know about my ankle? She did not subscribe to the email-only discussion group. She asked another appraiser to check online for anything that might help her case. Other appraisers have reported similar situations.

Remember the Primary Rule, which I learned when I first browser opened the Internet to us all. At that time you assumed it could be published on the front page of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, etc. Now, it is even worse – it can go all over the Internet. The only communication that I know of that is private is the inside of postal mail envelopes. Government agencies can track what is on the outside, but not the inside without a special court order.

by Isaac Peck, Editor, WorkingRE

Excerpt:

Facing denial of its license to operate an appraisal management company (AMC) in the state of Virginia, the AMC Coester VMS has filed a lawsuit against the Virginia Real Estate Appraiser Board alleging that the Board is engaged in “a conspiracy to restrain and monopolize trade” and is operating in violation of federal antitrust laws.

The suit follows Virginia’s recently passed AMC licensing laws, which set an August 18 deadline for applicants to obtain AMC licensure or cease operations in the state. The Board has issued dozens of AMC licenses but selected Coester for closer examination. On July 15, Coester attended an informal fact-finding conference and addressed several of the Board’s concerns, including Coester’s history of consent orders and settlement agreements in five other states, for alleged violations of state laws: Maryland, North Carolina, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Minnesota. The allegations against Coester in these states include: unlicensed AMC activity, false advertising, failure to pay appraisers on time, failure to pay customary and reasonable fees, failure to respond to requests within the time period specified, failure to submit biannual certification, as well as USPAP violations committed by Brian Coester himself.

Read lots more, and get links to the docouments at:

For lots more info on Coester, just google Coester AMC or brian coester appraiser

My comment: Looks like various state appraisal boards are looking closer at AMCs. Coester recently got into a tiff with the Louisiana State Board, which was resolved. I am so glad California has never had an appraisal board!! (Gov.  Schwartzenegger wanted to cut costs back then.) Too many possible conflicts of interest… The issues seems to be mostly about fees. I am also not comfortable about appraisal state boards regulating appraisal fees. They should focus on what is important – USPAP.