USCRAP – Systematic Destruction of Residential Appraising
We Studied USCRAP…
Not so long ago I had multiple clients. They would call me if they needed my professional services and trusted me to perform a satisfactory service. I’m a streetwalker. I drive and walk the streets looking at houses and photographing them from the street (outcalls) and sometimes going inside to determine condition (in calls).
This worked well for many years until the Federal Government got involved in the late 1980s. The Feds discovered that a few streetwalkers had exaggerated their claims of professionalism and service and declared in the 1989 DIARRHEA that all streetwalkers must be licensed and regulated by the state in which they operate. The states got together and formulated a set of rules for streetwalkers they called USCRAP that outlined in minute detail how streetwalkers were to do business.
Well, we studied USCRAP, passed the tests and got our state certifications and went back to walking the streets like before. Unfortunately our clients, like typical JOHNS, wanted more and more for their money. They pressured us into providing service ‘over and above’ the typical service. If we refused they would blacklist us and no longer engage our services or pay us for services rendered. We would complain to the State regulators and they would do nothing since the JOHNS were not regulated by the States.
This continued to get worse over the years until 2008 when the financial system collapsed due to the JOHNS’ greed and over indulgence. Again the Feds stepped in, not to regulate the JOHNS but to stimulate them with more money and punish the streetwalkers with a new law HVCC (Help Violators Cover Crimes) so we will no longer be allowed to take calls from our clients.
Theoretically the JOHNS will no longer pressure us directly to provide ‘special services’ above and beyond USCRAP. Orders for our services will not be directed to any particular streetwalker but must be funneled through third parties known as Streetwalker Management Companies or PIMPS.
This makes the JOHNS happy now they have more money and can call the PIMPS to order any type of extraordinary service they desire without breaking the law because the PIMPS are not regulated either. With our access to our clients foreclosed we are now forced to use the PIMPS to get our business contacts and give up half or more of our fee in the process.
But wait, there’s more…
Now the PIMPS can relay messages to individual streetwalkers about servicing a particular JOHN who has requested a ‘special service’. If the JOHN does not like the service provided by a streetwalker he can ‘blacklist’ them with the PIMP, who can demand retribution or withhold payment for the service.
It seems to me like we’re back to square one, but with half or less of our fee.
Here’s my suggestion…
The 200,000 or so appraisers in the USA should form a union and call for a national strike. This will allow us to take DIARRHEA, USCRAP, HVCC, the JOHNS and the PIMPS and flush the whole mess down the WC.
- FHFA’s Appraisal Waivers Expansion - October 29, 2024
- Lack of Evidence, Appraiser Challenges Discrimination Claims - October 24, 2024
- NFHA’s False Narrative Undermines the Appraisal Industry - October 18, 2024
Nobody is listening.
Wow. You should quit. Maybe start an AMC that cares.
My FannieMae Certificate of Completion
This certifies Jack Schlenk has successfully completed the course:
“Understanding the CU Risk Score, Flags, and Messages”
December 21,2014
I hope the reader(s) read all of the data in my reports.
LMAO! yeah, that about covers it.
that sums it up to a tee. what a fiasco things become when politicians and lawyers start sticking their noses into free enterprise.
The consumer has been stripped of their benefit of free market systems. Cost savings are never returned to the borrowing consumer, but rather are held as variable opportunistic profit from amc’s. Providing a financial incentive for amc’s to drive down appraisers fees. Mysteriously; junk fee and unearned fee rules don’t apply to the amc’s. If lenders created a surplus like this, and did not return it to the consumers, it would be called a junk or unearned fee and be illegal. Appraisers don’t need unions. We need for middle management companies to be paid separately in escrow accounts, so that it would be illegal for them to drive down appraisal fees for variable opportunistic profit. Consumer charges go up, appraisers fees go down, and amc’s create more new jobs at the expense of the appraisal industry. I took one amc order all last year at $495, but I fear this industry is headed south even faster, in 2015. The fault rests on the mortgage banking systems for purposefully trying to eliminate the checks and balances function of the appraiser. There is no appraisal group, union, or organization that can stop this financial pressure on our fees. However, a simple rule that amc and appraiser fees can never be co mingled, will stop a lot of this external pressure applied by these new monopoly enterprises (amc’s), who have cornered and constrained the appraisers free markets for clients. Lenders could better control amc engagement and force this separation of fees, but they choose not to. The latest extreme blow for appraisers was the illogical decision that amc fees did not need to be disclosed on the closing documents as it’s own unique charge. I’m still optimistic though. That’s why I bank at the credit union.
Half the fee, twice the work, and ten times the liability!
It’s pretty sad when the government has to step in to retrain street walkers (which is precisely what CU is all about.
Look at the bright side. When the government has finished reinventing the appraisal profession you’ll all be as slick and adept as Gigolo Joe in Spielberg’s film Artificial Intelligence. Unfortunately, you can also look forward to being scrapped every time a better model comes out just as Gigolo Joe & Gigolo Jill were.
a shame you didn’t have this prophesied 30 years ago. i could’ve been a happily retired city bus driver with a pension. so much for life choices.
Over ten years ago I predicted that the machines would take over our business, Orwell predicted the rise of the machines and Big Brother in 1984, so I guess we got a few more “good”years. 🙂