Kevin, you’ll have to be more specific. Which ‘tacky’ comments are you referring to?

Are you are unfamiliar with traditional, sound, generally accepted appraiser practices dealing with competency? Before the era of Big Data we all used to visit and consult with local area agents to assure we were aware of specific sub market area nuances. Some of us still do.

I don’t know of any state in the USA where appraisers only work in their home counties. Not even Texas or Alaska. Generally there is simply not enough work at any one given time to keep all appraisers busy in only the county they reside in. Not even San Bernardino County, CA (check size).

Then again,  most appraisers already know this.

Lastly, Kevin we all like people to agree with us or to be ‘in our corner’. It’s human nature. My preference is to build bridges rather than destroy them. Having said that, when people are being deliberately deceptive in their efforts to push a false narrative, then I am much less concerned with whether they are ‘in my corner’ or not.

Kevin, I accepted long ago that not everyone is going to like me. For a lot of reasons. That’s okay. I’m an appraiser. I’m also a Republican that happens to be a union organizer. It comes with the territory.

Mr, Ford, I’m surprised at your rather tacky comments and how you continue try to attack someone who is or at least was actually in your corner. I am not an appraiser anymore, I am not an AMC and I don’t order appraisals for any of our banks. I have concerns over geographic competency sending an appraiser across the state for any amount of fee not matter how big or small it may be as I don’t see that as a solution bank examiners would like to see either. We did find an appraiser that helped cover the one bank that needed help and I’ve moved on so I would hope you can too.

Kevin you are perpetuating a false narrative. Several in fact.

1. There is no shortage per your own map. My understandings is appraiser licenses in Ohio are valid statewide and those counties are not particularly large inland area.

2. Trainees just waiting in line for mentors? Fine. Then let the states AND TAF change the rules concerning both the number of appraisers that can be mentored; and the certification requirement for training others for work credit. Micro management and overall disrespect for the skill and experience of licensed level appraisers is what has lead to a decline in mentors for trainees.

3. Your statement “My role is to fix their valuation needs and currently no appraisers are willing to drive that far or they would already be using them” is simply dishonest. Pay a fair fee and offer attractive working conditions (absent all the usual AMC BS) for appraisers and you will be inundated with people willing to work for your mysterious “they”…Unless of course ‘they’ don’t pay their bills on time.

AGA has already written ASC on the alleged Tennessee and Oklahoma shortage issues..

Damn! Just accused you of not being an appraiser in another post. My mistake. I apologize… though what you were posting sure made ya sound like an AMC rep. If I can remember the thread I’ll self correct there too.

So says the anonymous guy touting the AMC low pay mantra. Obviously not an appraiser.

Seneca in order to write something off, I must first PAY it. Now my home office is discretionary and many of us work at home to either save money or time. My office in Beverly Hills is NOT part of my home office expense. $100 a week for parking; same for gas and 3 hours aa day out of my life commuting. Note I dont list rent there since the office space is given to me for free. Do you use your same phone for home and personal use as for business? Some do. Some dont.

Fact is office & overhead for self employed nationally usually runs from 25% to 50% of gross receipts.

Very interesting information. yes, what exactly is he pushing for?  His reply. if he does, should also be interesting.

You’re just being silly. Your home office & utilities are a write off not an expense. Even if you weren’t an appraiser you would have a phone, car and internet. You also get to write off your mileage in most other jobs you don’t, and that’s a really big deduction. Mike, you’re another guy that loses creditability with every post.

Where to begin…

Seneca overhead in any appraisal office is usually closer to 25% to as high as 50%. Up until a month or two ago I had Alamode; ACI; Bradford, Narrative1, & BizPricer platform software (iit averrages around $200 month).

E&O is usually around $800 ($67 avg) when I carry it. Paper and ink run about $100 a month (staples, pins, etc.); gas-minimum of $100 month if Im NOT busy and up to around $400 if I am.

My home office is 15% of my house. My mortgage is $2,200×0.15 =$330 PLUS pro rata share of utilities. I cut back phone and internet service bundles but still pay over $100 a month.

License renewals; CE every 2 years and optional coursework simply because I WANT to learn? At least another $100 a month. MLS Service? About $30 a month. NAR / CAR fees? $75 (includes designations),

CoStar Comps 5 zone (OK I learned how to side step this but have to be prepared at any moment to restart it) at $1,000 a month on average (assuming they are still at $2,500 per zone x 5 for L.A.);

land line? Car payment  and insurance? (All five clunkers are paid for but repairs on average are another $250 a month…when I can afford them-which is why I wound up having to get 5 cars to begin with); OK so you think its a 6 figure income? (450 x 5 x 52 =$117,000 right? MINUS 15% self employment social security ($17,550),

Overhead is so far at over $20K per year-Shall we add in vacation & sick time? At my experience level if I were still civil service it would be 4 weeks a year but lets say only 3. (117,000/52 x 3 = $6,750) so now we have brought that 6 figures down to around 90K (I know, I should figure SSI on adjusted gross but you get the idea). Income taxes?

Lets pretend I can still legitimately drop myself to a 15% federal level – that takes me down to about $75k net so far. Oops! Governor MoonBeam wants his cut! Down to $68,500 now. Legal fees? Hmmm. Last year WAS a bit unusual at $172,000 but EVERY appraiser needs to build up a contingency fund. So say $10K set away each year that you PRAY wont be needed, but just in case? Down to $58,000 now.

Now out of the ‘salary’ I pay myself I still have the other 85% of my mortgage payment that the business doesn’t pay. Thats $2,200 x 12 x 0.85 = ($22,440)

Down to $35,560 now. Anyone out there ever get sick? We are only three in my household, but lets agree that HC is going to run $1,200 to $1,800 a month. (Up to $21,600)- leaves around $14,000 left (roughly). Birthdays, other holidays, gifts? Family emergencies? How about spouses or significant others and children? Anyone here get by giving spouse LESS than $500 discretionary $ per month? How about food? We gave up eating because I don’t DO 5 appraisals a week but for most families eating is pretty much a habit. $400 a month? $500? Y’all run around naked in your house? We have a young daughter so that’s probably not appropriate for my house. $150 a month?

$200 left! Rolling in the dough now! Cats wont get to eat each month but as long as they stay healthy I can feed them every other day, right?

By the way, getting orders in a nice convenient steady stream so you can do one each and every day, with NONE of them being complex (about 1/3 are as a rule) is also not happening.

So lastly, you think no one takes 15 hours for an appraisal? I’ve spent that long on desk reviews. MOST of what I do takes more than 15 hours. This last post of yours about 15 hours along with “who only does 5 a week’ tells me you are either not an appraiser or you are a superficial minimalist who has been lucky so far in reviews.

My guess is you are a staff reviewer for an AMC

Now thats funny!

I like Dustin…and even know ONE appraiser in Los Angeles that follows SOME of his strategies and they work for him (SRA). They wouldn’t  work for me, but for my friend they do.

My friend is also exceptionally organized; very efficient, extremely computer literate (as only a former IT guy can be) has a dedicated spouse that is very experienced in appraisal issues helping him and still uses a second assistant. Apparently he uploads most of the data and report is almost filled out by time he goes back to office for it.

In fairness my friend also USED to run a paperless office. I think I’ve cured him of that.

Yup!

That’s the $64,000 question Wayne. Long ago (1993) I told all my former associate staff appraisers that they were crazy to keep working for LSI because it amounted to serfdom.

The fees had gotten so low that these guys had to work 14-18 hours a day in order to do two appraisals per day on average. Working 7 days a week just to maintain an average of +-14 pr week so they could earn $4,000 to $5,000 a month. Most were family men. Many were also first generation immigrants with an extreme idea of normal work ethic.Some stayed with that client because they accepted all caps typing; and didn’t nit pick about grammatical ‘errors’ typical of ESL practitioners. But, as time progressed and these guys become better in all aspects they were still trapped.

They just didn’t have the time to go out and look for new jobs or to develop new business. They truly owed their souls to the Company Store.

…and don’t think for a minute that AMCs don’t know this and rely on it.

Mr. Klosterman is not a licensed appraiser in Ohio currently. Expired in 2008, so the question is whose interests is he promoting?

I believe so. In addition, this guy serves one part of his state one day, a second part on another, and on a 3rd and final inspection day the last part of the state. Apparently nobody in his area has a job, as he says only one or two people a year happen to not be available the one time a week he serves their area under a two hour window. I guess now he has some all star appraisal or some Star Trek Academy where all of the mind tricks are taught.

Don’t take it personally please. Liability risk keeps climbing and I just went 10 years without a single complaint. They call me first because I’m better, not because I’m quicker.

One presumes cost savings are returned to consumers and the consumers have benefited from your ability to provide equivalent service for a lower cost? That’s how it’s supposed to work. That’s called pricing in the free market, benefit of scale. If you’re discounting to get ahead of the competition and assignment decisions are based on fee instead of quality, that’s called undercutting. When the distributor profits while concealing these windfalls created from deceptive pay to play practices from interested parties, that’s called fraud. When they share those profits back with lenders, that’s called a kickback. The legality of the various described practices have nothing to do with income amount, but rather have everything to do with ethical compliance of the process and approach itself. The junk fee, the unearned fee, the truth in lending disclosure rules, fdic rules on assignment practices regarding qualification, none of those dictate any standard fee or volume, rather they dictate what is acceptable process, and what is not. Concealing variable fee rakes and pocketing the difference is just dirty business. If a distributor engages in a contingency based process which would otherwise be illegal for an appraiser to engage in, the approach can not be justified with sound ethics. Individual appraisers licensing for all distribution works should clean that up in a hurry. No offense, but this has been the broken record repeat argument of the decade. To date nobody can justify this approach and now new events show us how desperate assignment companies really are to conceal this process from investigative and rule making authorities.

Oh, Just stop it. No one on the planet needs 15 hours per appraisal. If you do then you are not an expert in your market. You are slowly losing creditability with every post. Or you’ve had too much Scotch.

I will give Kevin at least one benefit of the doubt, Holmes county has a very heavy Amish population. Amish don’t list with MLS and most sell between each other. The Amish value of the organic soil they developed is a different value than to the general public’s idea of value. But at the end of the day the Amish still need financing. In these busy times most appraisers will turn this work down because it’s boot work. It is a niche.

It’s called providing a thing of value to be the preferred selectee. The management rule. If cost savings are not returned to consumers, appraisers who discount to get ahead of others have provided a thing of value to the distributor (arguably being party to help them defraud consumers). The differences between working with companies with set fees, vs companies who shop.

I can complete a weak appraisal a day, but the more you know, the better you get, the longer it takes. Quality first. High quality detail and using no short cuts maxes me out at 3 a week in around 50 hours. Price is not value and speed does not equal quality. Do I know what I’m talking about yet?

Kevin by ‘working with many banks and regulators’ do you mean as an AMC employee?

You haven’t been a licensed appraiser since 2008 so I question whether you are qualified to opine about anything from an appraisers perspective anymore.

First Name :
Kevin

Middle Initial :
M

Last Name :
Klosterman

Name Suffix (Jr, Sr, etc.) :

Company Name :

Street Address :
5885 Dublin Rd

City :
Dublin

State :
OH

Zip Code :
43017-1401

County :
Franklin

Telephone Number :
614-336-3590

Status:
InActive

Credentialing State:
OH

State Credential Number :
406987

Credential Certificate Type :
Licensed

Effective Date of Credential :
11/15/2007

Expiration Date of Credential :
10/21/2008