Thank you Koma. No big deal tough. I am guilty of the same kinds of writing. I think what I am saying is perfectly clear, because it may be so to me, and when I read what I write my ‘mind’s eye’ sees what I wanted to write more than what I actually wrote. I’m grateful for all the informative data that VaCAP puts out there.

Mike,

I agree that VaCAP was not as clear as they could have been in their statement on these property damage reports and your thought was the same as what I had thought. The same went with the Treasure Valley Factors statement about not accepting invoices. It took several reads of what they were saying before I understood what VaCAP was saying that TVF were not accepting invoices from that one company.

Only the questions not asked are the dumb questions or something like that.

“Lenders will be asking for property damage reports on properties we have appraised and are going to appraise over the next few weeks. Try to stay positive when we get these requests.”

WHY would an admonition to ‘stay positive’ be necessary at all if something negative were not being anticipated? I merely asked a question.

Is VaCAP now cautioning appraisers to ‘be positive’ simply at the prospect of more potential income?

All it required was a clarification. Snarkiness was optional at your discretion.

Mike, That’s a pretty good leap you are taking stating VaCAP is suggesting appraisers re inspect properties for free.  No where did we state that or even suggest that!

Appraisers will get requests for statements concerning damage in areas that were not seriously impacted by the storms. We get these requests on the east coast every time a storm comes through. This is typical for lenders across the country as they simply do not know where damage has occurred. Remember Irma had a width of 450 miles. That is a very broad area.

What we are reminding appraisers of is to remember the underwriter, AMC, or processor is simply doing their jobs. Charging  for a service or not is a business decision.

VaCAP suggestion is unclear to me re property inspection reports. Are they suggesting appraisers do re inspections at no additional charge? If so, then they are seriously misguided.

If you want to help a hurricane victim, and you voluntarily CHOOSE to do an appraisal or a certain percentage for free, then God Bless you. On the other hand if the lender is still making their normal profit from a pending loan requires updated property condition information why should the appraiser now work for free?

Re inspections are a separate service. If you are going to offer opinions about the suitability of a property to serve as collateral or whether a value is still supported, it is a new appraisal.

If you are being asked whether there appears to be ‘any significant damage’ from the street front without offering suitability comments then it is simply a new assignment. Either way it was not in your original scope of work and anyone doing them for free would be a damn fool.

When ALL other aid providers; ALL government employees, and ALL private sector service employees are working for free, then appraisers may reasonably be asked to consider similar volunteer work.

Yeah, awesome points.  Remember those af threads on how whole locations and states are sometimes attentive to zoning coding structure issues, others are not and it’s an outbuilding free for all?  A good example of changing use area in Denver would be the proposed i-70 tunnel.  Pictures are amazing, but community feedback, not so hot.  Now if you’re dealing with 2 conflicting data considerations, public input, and proposed government plans, which one do you think would make it’s way into the avm modeling data base if projecting future value?  Think living next to a highway is bad, imagine it running 12 lanes wide under ground level, a grass park over, and your home gets wafting pollution from a vent or opening literally right at the sidewalk.  CU, real time zoning and highway proposal data nationally?  Unlikely.

http://www.coloradoindependent.com/160187/i-70-expansion-explained

Good points Mike, but I ‘m thinking they don’t even care the same way we do.

All the letters and unity within the industry are a start, we need to go further and specifically spell out scenarios that we as appraisers encounter each day.