No one. You are free to decline the assignment.

Pat,
Please forgive me for pointing this out, but the plural of AMC is AMCs. Small “s,” no apostrophe. Plural, not possessive.
Thanks

We allow AMC’s to screw us over, you have to stand up for yourself and know your WORTH. I have never been afraid to fire an AMC. Meaning refuse their work and request to be taken out of their rotation. Guess what? They always find a way to call you back and offer you higher fees. I have been fortunate enough over the past 4 years to be a Staff Appraiser for one of the top lenders. It is like night and day and again because I knew my WORTH I was able to be successful and was sought out by the lender to apply. I saw some of the AMC Staff Appraiser offers and guess what they are ridiculous. A $40K salary and anywhere from $50 to $100 per Appraisal. If you think about it what is the difference if you are a fee panel Appraiser. The problem is we have yet to unite and go against the industry to fight for ourselves. We are treated like the least important, take all of the slack on bad loans, foreclosures, etc. and expected to work for half an sometimes less than half of our fees. When teachers don’t get paid they strike, when nurses get over worked they strike, when union workers are served bad contracts they strike. Does anyone get the picture. Without us lenders can’t lend, Agents can’t sell, AMC’s go out of business and on and on.

It’s simple know your WORTH. If we took one bad AMC at a time we could over turn the bad fee payers and take our industry back. Either they give in to our demands or shut down. Believe me if they don’t have the capability to produce Appraisals to their clients they lose, but we win. They give us what we deserve or we strike. But again this does not apply to me, I am extremely happy where I am and why is that? BECAUSE I KNOW MY WORTH. I will also support my Fellow Appraisers. Also note Not every AMC is bad there are some good ones out there!

Don’t worry about it Mike. You’re the man and for one, I’ve seen the tides turning and am just sure you have had a very positive influence. Thank you to everyone whom participates. What’s it all for if we can’t have fun with it and build a better future for everyone. A drop in the bucket.

Hi Pat. Thank you. This website is a grinder, no doubt about it. All types and all ideas. This site is accessible through normal internet and many presume it’s only a facebook group. I’m just accessing via web address and don’t even have a facebook.

I don’t know, this is not what I signed up for though, the proliferation of amc’s really crushed this industry and have many of us exploring where the new careers may be. If I’m going to answer to a boss, that certainly won’t be a middle manager, and I’m more likely to dip back into trades, which would make a nice accompaniment to the diverse skill sets appraisal has given me.

My personal take on appraisal is that it’s an essential check and balance and the position is best suited for independent advisors. Although the tech guys provided so many of us tools to ‘build businesses’ around this, I just think this little segment of the industry is better suited for straight up full speed full access independence. Like you said, but under a different light, we’re creating our own problems.

Amc’s just really, well, can these non licensed ancillary people please just try to manage someone else instead? We’ve rejected them in unison enough, they should get a clue. Like how Mercury network promotes amc’s and shares lists of them freely, but then refuses to release lists of which lenders assign direct and don’t use amc’s. They know very well that if appraisers were given easy opportunity to market away from amc’s, the entire body of them would jump ship like the very next day. 9 out of 10 would at least, which interestingly enough is the inverse proportion compared to how amc’s try to build up on a few of the appraisers and leave the rest riding the bench. What’s wrong with full fee, no splits, rotational assignment, and shutting down appraisers whom game the system?

I don’t know, no easy answers but thank you for participating. I just try to make the best of it and add some color now and then. This really is an uncensored site where sponsors do not have control of content, a rare benefit in this modern day for sale media environment. I said I was never going to post again like years ago, here I am still, ha. What’s most interesting to me about this site is that all content gets higher search visibility for outside researchers and is not held behind a login wall like appraisers forum, and the content is not constantly framed around the wishes of the various sponsors and such. Anyone with anything relevant can write here which is why I find myself here for my daily fix quite often. Thank you.

Hopefully the tides are turning in this country.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/education/decades-pushing-bachelors-degrees-u-s-needs-tradespeople

Hi Baggins,

I could not agree with you more our two sons are both trainee appraisers and my wife is about to get her trainee license as well. To add to that my other appraisers in my company were trained by me and have been with me 10-20 years because they were friends or friends of a friend that asked me to give them a chance. I was trained by a family of appraisers the husband, wife and daughter. I learned from the ground up and will never forget the opportunity that they gave me. They paid me a split fee and I stayed with them for four years until they were ready to close the shop due to age and illness. When I started my own company it was with a friend and we made the decision to not pay a split or use 1099 to give the people who worked with me a steady income and with a bonus system in place so they could take advantage of the busy times. I agree that there is no simple nor single answer to keeping the fees up, I just thought that an open conversation would be productive. As you can see it has not and it did not have to. I continue to believe that there are more positive outcomes for our profession.

http://www.workingre.com/full-fee-work/

The amc has a financial incentive to reduce your fee for variable opportunistic profit and are not required to return cost savings to consumers.

The majority of appraisers whom sign up with amc’s have lost in advance. If you sign up to be taken advantage of, guess what happens next.

The$e companies could eliminate these improprietie$ by doling out all order$ at a con$i$tent fee and a$$igning order$ in a round robin fair rotational ba$i$. Want to take a $tab at why they don’t do that? I’m even trying to leave you guy$ clue$ but I wonder if perhap$ you $imply don’t read the blog$ enough, or if you $imply don’t get it.

Want to take a guess why they don’t utilize a more efficient and effective rotational assignment at consistent fees approach? Any takers?…

“If you’re good enough to land on an approved appraisers panel, you should expect to receive a fair portion of the work load.” Appraisers whom game the system ruin it for the rest of us. You’re supposed to take the good with the bad at a consistent fee and just deal with it. Swim upstream if you want to but I’d remind you you’re not a salmon, you’re a human being whom should expect more. When you work with an amc, you are the customer.

People should challenge the ideology more than anything else. I think the author was pretty brave to participate. He did not reinvent this wheel, he just rolled with what was already in front of him.

The amc model rides on the back of those proprietary cozy relationships where the mortgage manager funneled all the work to singular firms whom made deals work. Different name, same model as before. Amc’s, middle managers, puppy mills, order farmers, etc.

The best appraisal firms are more like partnerships where appraisers are free to be released whenever they want, but it may be a difficult play if they no longer had trusted mentors to advise them with complex or unusual requests, walk them through advanced accreditation programs, teach them how to represent in court, avoid liability, how to deal with the dynamic range of more than just mortgage lending work, etc. A good fee split for a fairly minded firm is something 70% plus.

Ideally licensed appraisers should be self managed, cover all their own expenses, and then not feel any resentment or loss of working value when the firm owner still gets a tenth or so off the top. The firm manager functions more like an administrator and rakes a steady income with workflow management and fire extinguishing, all the while enjoying a position where they don’t have to sign as supervisory appraiser and no longer even has to market the services of their contractors because if they want more, they build the firm by marketing on behalf of the firm.

An appraisal mentors proper position is to fully equip a trainee to be self sustainable while upholding public trust, upholding the peer standard, and not be hoodwinked by aggressive business interests…

Price is not the same thing as value, and it will always be an impossible sale to tell a person that literally half of their potential income is with held because of the ‘value of employment’, or the ‘value of mentorship’.

Just like massive puppy mill efforts caused a proliferation in appraisers willing to work with amc’s to get a leg up, and just like how amc’s are having a tough time maintaining their position as appraisers finally get wise and market to lenders directly, the viable days of this sort of business model will remain limited.

There are some interesting ways to restore C&R…
http://www.workingre.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/IVPI-Proposalfinal.pdf
Pg 6, “the solution”.

Anyone whom can say you’ll only get 50% as a licensed appraiser, with a straight face… Try paying your people a professional wage and watch them subsequently have higher aspirations in the free market. The majority of appraisers are paying 1099’s? Is there data to back up this claim? I work alone.

It’s true though, when puppy mill big deal appraisal firms slow down, appraisers really can earn more at amc’s. It only makes sense to take a leg up, even if just a small step. It’s a shame that vital skills like how to market to lenders directly, get on approved panels, and negotiate a fair market rate, it’s just too bad those skills were with held from their training periods.

If only their ‘mentors’ would have better equipped them to be good negotiators, in their aspiring positions of being price and value experts… People wonder why appraisers are ill equipped to stand up to abusive oversight these days. That’s how they were trained in the first place. Who takes 50% and makes them pay their own expenses!? Do people really go for that? Puppy mills were the original amc’s and if not for amc rules, they’d still to this day operate with dozens of appraisers in there taking fee splits rather than just a few which is probably right up to the state limit so they don’t have to be officially defined as an amc.

This broken record keeps on skipping.

When the amc’s start billing on a cost plus basis, eliminate the financial incentive to drive down appraisers fees for variable profit, as the cost savings are finally returned to the borrowing consumer, and pay the VA fee table rate or close to that… Keep dreaming.

The authors premise is interesting but also misses the mark. If you want to run a big old glorious business, go into sales. The best appraisers came up through family and friendly connections and never had to abide those fee splits in the first place. The purpose appraisers serve is quite important, those whom treat upcoming appraisers as disposable resources are as much to blame as amc’s. I remember getting 80%, or salary, whatever the intake numbers would support at the time.

Because I never took splits like that in the first place, there was very little question or misunderstanding what a massive rip off working with split fee firms or amc’s really meant to me as an individual.

Yup!

“I own my own company Accurity did NOT buy me nor will I ever sell It to answer your question. As for the benefit if joining Accurity I have not used any of their resources NONE! They sought me out to help build out a national sales group. I am not paid, I own no stock, I am not on the board of directors, I have no voting rights. I am trying to get out of this entire conversation”

It really does not matter who or why you wrote this article or even what company you claim to be associated with. It doesn’t even matter that you want out of a conversation you don’t like. The story you are stating tells a very different story to the facts we have discovered about your relationship with Accurity.

That’s fine if you want to keep what ever secrets you have, but the reality is Accurity is associated with Clarocity in some way and Accurity is associated with Columbia Institute, which is CoreLogic. Neither of these companies are friends of the appraiser. You have lost all credibility when you are the National Director of Business Development promoting Accurity. Had you just come clean on everything when asked, this conversation would have had a different path.

“Many of out clients want a desktop review and some of our clients use the Clarocity desktop product. The goal if you would take a step back is to sign up appraisers and appraisal companies nationwide to go after national lenders with an elite group of appraisers. The benefits to becoming an Accurity affiliate member is that for $100.00 per year you get the following benefits, a subscription to ANOW an amazing database soft ware product, discounted health, dental and optical insurance since we were able to sing up enough members that the typical health care savings is anywhere from 15-35% compared to the state markets. The last piece to the puzzle was to actively start marketing Accurity to national lenders and the appraisers that have signed up with Accurity will have first right of the assignments in their markets with no pass thru fees. I know that you will not like to hear that I am under a NDA in regards to other products and services that we will be rolling out in the next five quarters.”

Appears to meet the very definition of an AMC according to many states AMC laws.

“Yawn.”

“Many of out clients want a desktop review and some of our clients use the Clarocity desktop product. The goal if you would take a step back is to sign up appraisers and appraisal companies nationwide to go after national lenders with an elite group of appraisers. The benefits to becoming an Accurity affiliate member is that for $100.00 per year you get the following benefits, a subscription to ANOW an amazing database soft ware product, discounted health, dental and optical insurance since we were able to sing up enough members that the typical health care savings is anywhere from 15-35% compared to the state markets. The last piece to the puzzle was to actively start marketing Accurity to national lenders and the appraisers that have signed up with Accurity will have first right of the assignments in their markets with no pass thru fees. I know that you will not like to hear that I am under a NDA in regards to other products and services that we will be rolling out in the next five quarters.”

Pat, you said, “The banks were able to lay off thousands of employees when HVCC and Dodd/Frank came in. Why would they open themselves up to that kind of exposure and employees costs again?” The key here Pat, is separating the AMC fee from the appraisal fee. Would the banks again hire thousands of employees to manage the process in-house like they used to, or would they pay $100 to $500+ PER APPRAISAL to an AMC? One of my clients is a small credit union (30 branch locations / 500 employees), and I have 1st hand knowledge that the so called appraisal department contains TWO PEOPLE (They use Mercury Network/manage in-house). The banks would figure out overnight that its cheaper to run in-house versus using an AMC, or they would simply just charge the borrower the AMC fee.

The 1st step is to separate the fees.

Seek the truth.

I own my own company Accurity did NOT buy me nor will I ever sell It to answer your question. As for the benefit if joining Accurity I have not used any of their resources NONE! They sought me out to help build out a national sales group. I am not paid, I own no stock, I am not on the board of directors, I have no voting rights. I am trying to get out of this entire conversation as the owner of the blog has stated I wrote this as the owner of HF Appraisal Ltd. I agree with you in regards to the lenders and some of the AMC’s. That being said do you really think that any of the big national lenders will ever go back to ordering their own appraisals and reviewing them. The banks were able to lay off thousands of employees when HVCC and Dodd/Frank came in. Why would they open themselves up to that kind of exposure and employees costs again?

I’ve spent way too much time on this. Bottom line we all need to keep the fees up and the only way is if we all work together.

Thank you for putting this article out and explaining how you do things and how its worked for you and your business. I however have to disagree with the fact that fees are driven down due to appraisers running off to amcs to get work. Many Independent appraisers may have 1 person or many working for them. The appraiser or business sets the fee that they are willing to accept. I for one know what I am WILLING to accept and what I am not WILLING to accept. I run a good business and get good fees from my GOOD clients. Many amcs offer way below C&R fees to appraisers and many appraisers do accept those fees. Why? Well there may be many reasons such as not having good clients to work with, maybe they aren’t a good appraiser, maybe they have been black listed and have to work with clients that allow them to continue to work, maybe they have been threatened that they wont get work due to not accepting this fee, maybe the amcs they work with continue to bid out work and they are forced to take lower fees in order to get work. Not everyone out there has been in this business as long as some of us and some may just not know any better. C&R has no meaning because No one has established what that is. No other industry has this problem of others telling us what they will pay for a job or tell us we have to pay a TECH FEE to upload a report due to their poor choices of who or what software they decided to use.

I wouldn’t put all the blame on appraisers for low fees. If i remember right before AMCs came flooding the profession I was able to negotiate with ease my fee with the lender or mortgage company, just like i do today for private work. Right after HVCC was put into place and the amcs came about i do recall almost every AMC offering below $300 fees to appraisers and over time it has increased with many amcs but still not to what it was pre 2008. Amcs commingling with fees has caused this issue. If borrowers are willing to pay $500+ for what they believe is the appraisal then that should go to the appraiser and the AMC should negotiate a separate fee for THEIR services to the lender and not take a cut of the fee which reduces our fees. Maybe read my blog post entitled “whats not in your wallet” that was posted here on blogs as well. Think about this… When it was slow back in Jan-Feb some amcs were outright asking appraisers to cut their fees down. Why? Because the volume wasn’t there for them to sustain themselves and pay employees. They sure as hell didn’t cut their fees to the borrowers instead they were trying to make more off what they had by asking appraisers to cut their fees. You mentioned that if we changed our business model to employees and not 1099 status that fees will go up. I am having a hard time understanding how that will make fees go up so I’d love to know more on that claim.

Now you said you have your own company however you did join the Accurity Appraisal team correct? So your company was acquired by Accurity and you now work for them as part of their nationwide network. Correct me if i am wrong. So that would make you part of their franchise? According to their site: Accurity franchisees are able to enjoy benefits unattainable by them as standalone companies. These include national sales and marketing support, national branding, employee benefits package, group buying power and the synergy of being associated with other top appraisal firms across the country. Ideal candidate firms will have demonstrated success in their marketplace as well as a desire to grow their business.

Now by all means I am not attacking etc here. But it appears you have a larger company supporting you and the appraisers you hire, freeing up money for expenses etc which many like myself do not have that option unless we joined forces with the likes of an Accurity and the AMCS they associate and partner with.

I think when it comes down to fees the blame cannot all go to us independent appraisers and trying to CONTROL things. The blame needs to go directly where it should go….. The amcs, the lenders and the ridiculous laws passed that have limited our profession to compete in a free market and actually act like real businesses.

It’s good to see that there are alternative ways to pay employees and still make money while doing that. Please feel free to look me up and maybe give me some insight on how your method will make things better for the profession going forward and how we can expect to have fees rise due to it.

Thank you.

Hi Carl,

I do all of the marketing myself. I will set up meetings with lenders and credit unions, I will find AMC’s that pay what is called a cost plus model to their appraisers. This is becoming more prevalent the deal is that the bank sets the fees that the AMC has to pay the appraiser and the AMC gets a flat rare per order. I am also on and off the phone through out the day checking in with my clients and always asking if they have any work for me. Like I said my model is not for everyone you could have a couple of key appraisers and make them W2 employees and 1099 the rest. I just believe that there is value is having control of where my appraisers go and keeping them busy.

Thank you for the question feel free to contact me if you have any other questions.

Pat Felvey

HF Appraisal Ltd
Elgin, IL, 60123