Of course! Hence the comments I made. You have been one of our most consistent supporters since I joined too.

Not to overlook any other members either. I am SO proud of all our members! Always willing to help another appraiser in need.

I know, I belong, remember ?

Diana took action long ago and continues to take it. If anyone else is serious about taking action contact janbellas@appraisersguild.org

Time to dust something off I think C&R fees http://www.mfford.com – just jump to the last page-everything in between is just the boring detail.

Glad to see you posting constructively again! Sadly, you are right.

Happily you are convincing others.

Action is EXACTLY what I am calling for now. Nationally and as a unified group. One GIANT shove to get everything on the plate settled once and for all.

Bubba eliminating C&R fee requirements is no different than eliminating minimum wage laws in America,

Most of what you say is spot on.

I would add that bank boards are kidding themselves that they have done their due diligence. They think as long as they have, or their lawyers can argue plausible deniability that there is no downside to the current AMC system.

That’s the best scenario. In practice, a lot of them are very much aware of the abuses that go on and simply don’t and won’t care until they get slapped with very heavy fines.

Its not enough for ASC to say that they see no air between the lender and their agent AMCs. They need to drive that message home in the only language that lenders seem to pay attention to… huge fines. I wonder if there is one lender in the country that can honestly be said to be in compliance with Dodd Frank AIR or C&R fee regulations.

John Adams said this about Thomas Paine, author of “Common Sense”:

“Without the pen of Paine, the sword of Washington would have been wielded in vain.” 

Without this simple man’s inspirational words it is highly doubtful that the American Revolution would have taken place, much less succeeded.
The irony being that a man who previously failed at everything he attempted and with a reputation of being a loose canon would eventually be remembered as as the Father Of The American Revolution.

His booklet is still the most widely sold and circulated book in American history when you take the population of the country at the time into account.

What appraisers need is another Thomas Paine.  Would they have enough common sense to understand his writings if he came back from the dead to address their plight, or would they continue to bury their heads in the sands of AMC owned beaches?

If you believe that a revolution needs to take place with regard to the appraisal profession, try your hand at writing.  I’ve been preaching to appraisers for nearly 7 years about the power of boycotting AMCs with little success.  What I have lacked in eloquence I have more than made up for in persistence. The time has come however for other appraisers (active or retired) to pick up the appraiser rebellion torch and run with it.

Take 3 minutes to watch this video. You may be amazed to learn that a handful of words had as much or more impact on creating this country than eight years of war.

Here is another amazing comparison:

6,824 Americans were killed in battle while fighting for our independence in the Revolutionary War.

30,000+ appraisers have been killed (professionally) by AMCs since 2009 because they refused to organize and fight back.  You can expect another 10,000 to disappear this year.

A Comparison:

Our ancestors fought for 8 long years, from 1775 – 1783, for both their and our independence. They risked everything.

Appraisers have chosen to cry about their misery for 7 years without lifting a finger to help themselves. They have steadfastly refused to risk ANYTHING.

Our colonial ancestors were intelligent enough to enlist the aid of France to help them win but they knew that they had to fight themselves in order to obtain and retain assistance from France.

Appraisers once had the full support of mortgage brokers and home builders in fighting for their rights and fees. Once these two groups saw that appraisers wouldn’t lift a finger to help themselves they fled.

Consider this a snapshot of the collective intelligence of the men and women entrusted to value real estate across our nation.

you are right Diana – appraisers are also at fault for some of this mess. “getting appraisers together is like herding cats” is the best analogy ever, and it will be the perfect epitaph for the appraisal industry tombstone when it gets officially buried in the next few years.

i too was a realtor for about ten years, and the concept of supporting of each other is like a night and day difference with appraisers. i have been a part of other occupations too, and its the same thing. but, anyone in the appraisal business, and i include the regulatory agencies as well, only seem to want to destroy each other. if you dont believe me, have another appraiser do a review on one of your reports. “he didnt do it the way i would have done it so its wrong!” is normally how those work. of course the reviewer is always right because they are the reviewer, right? it doesnt matter if the reviewer lives five states away and knows nothing about your market.

its all very frustrating. appraisers know how gooned up things are, yet all anyone can do is watch it go down the drain. the people in charge continue to talk and hold their little meetings, and portray to the general public they know what they are doing, but they dont. the constant exodus of  appraisers every year proves that something aint right somewhere. ask appraisers what aint right, and they will tell you, just like they have for the last 10+ years. almost all appraisers have the right answers because thats what they actually do everyday and they are the one in the trenches. but does anyone listen? no, of course not.

the entire mess is all coming full circle now. the numbers prove it, and its no longer just someones opinion. as long as the decision makers continue to just talk and not listen to appraisers, and not take ACTION, things unfortunately WILL get worse. history has also proven this over the last ten years or so. lets face the facts here – even the simplest matters such as being honest with the consumer, and fully disclosing the appraisal fee on the HUD statement, cant be decided or moved on. its very sad when immediate action cant even be taken on simple, common sense matters!

very sad indeed.

the bleeding continues . . . . .

(1) If re-evaluating C&R fees means independent fee studies, I would demand the following. We must educate all parties to what is required to develop a USPAP compliant report (in your area) and set a minimum fee based on the federally accepted standards. Although the appraiser coach may disagree with me, we must also establish a la carte what our fees are for the ever increasing scope creep. If my local franchise McDonalds can place a value of 10 cents for that additional dipping sauce I want for my nuggets, than I think we have the ability to place a value on that extra 15, 30 or 120 minutes being asked/demanded of us.

(2) Most AMC’s offer several product options for their lender clients with many choosing to use the firewall protection that the AMC company provides by way of a SAAS platform (software as a system). A large portion of the reported appraisal fee (as indicated to the borrower) is paid directly to the AMC, however without getting the full service, the report indicates No AMC. The system is a loophole for the lenders to steal our fees while technically not having to disclose in those states that require it, the separate AMC fee split. The lenders may also be using this data to establish C & R fees as again technically with NO AMC used; they may be meeting the Dodd Frank requirements.

The system is broken.

The problem with these groups are that they are made up of guys who are still making good money from other sources (brokerage, commercial appraisals, property management, etc.) or they have a spouse taking the pressure off of them.  More importantly, many of them sit on boards of various agencies so they cannot make waves.

An Appraisal Congress should be made up of guys are are truly fed up with the crap they’ve endured; intelligent but rebellious appraisers.  The guys who have watched their client lists evaporate overnight in 2009.  They guys who have watched their income drop by well over 50% since 2009.  I don’t even care if every signer of the document is retired as long as they were appraisers.  They have nothing to lose for sure since banks can’t poke them up the petunia for signing it.  The trick would be to get a document out there and a single leader to rally behind.  If we have a appraiser reader named George Washington Jones…please step forward.

If you had a document, a website, and a little news about it.  Appraisers would surely join in for at least a week to boycott AMCs.  30,000 have already quit, another 5,000 to 10,000 will quit this year.  What do they have to lose?

organizations like VaCAP, have good intentions, but IMO, will only continue to cruise right along and flap their gums behind cloth-covered tables for years to come. in the meantime, appraiser fees remain low, expenses keep going up, and behind all their backs, businesses are closing. i am willing to bet that five to ten years years from now, nothing will have actually CHANGED, and they will all still be sitting around cloth-covered tables, talking about the same kind of things that are written in this article. i mean come on, after (seven you say?) years of this, how can appraisers not expect anything else?

i mean come on, nobody can even seem to get something this simple and something that makes complete sense done around here. say hello to four years ago.

Appraisal and AMC Fees Separated on Revised Settlement Forms

in the meantime and behind all their backs, and in eerie deafening silence, appraisers are re-training themselves, they are finding other work, they are retiring, or just plain getting out. a day will soon come when the people behind cloth-covered tables are shocked to see the appraiser numbers plummeting, and they will say to themselves – “HEY WAIT?! Where did everyone go?! Was it the ridiculous education requirements?!”

oh wait!

http://appraisersblogs.com/number-applications-appraiser-trainees-tell-story/

absolutely the bleeding continues . . . . .

* Form an Appraisers Congress with 1 delegate from each state.

* Issue a Declaration of Independence from bank owned AMCs on July 4, 2016

* Draw up a war plan.

* Find 1 charismatic figure head to rally behind.

* Boycott AMCs for a specific time (your Boston Tea Party)

* Use the media cover to expose the crimes being committed by AMCs and the banks that own them. Let homeowners know that they are being screwed royally by the current reverse auction style appraisal ordering system.

Over Seven Long Years:
Did you lose clients to AMCs?
Have you lost income to AMCs?
Do appraisals consume far more of your time?
Are homeowners being lied to on the HUD-1?
Are you willing to wage war on AMCs?
 

I suspect that a great many appraisers become appraisers rather than Realtors because they have no clue about how to take action. They are introverts who are incapable of bonding with others in society. I know that sounds harsh but how else can you explain the fact that appraisers have been sitting with their thumbs up their petunia’s for 7 long years DOING NOTHING to save themselves?

Here is my advice to those who remain in the industry: If you don’t have the balls to boycott AMCs completely do your fellow appraisers and GET OUT OF THE BUSINESS.