True. For what its worth I stopped using M&S LONG ago. http://www.building-cost.net is free; and my hard copy Craftsman National Building Cost Manual doesn’t require an ongoing subscription for its updates. The Building-cost.net can even be printed for a hard copy work file record or saved as a pdf.

with all the garbage going on nowadays, appraisers have to be feeling more like they are starting off their day off by brushing their teeth with dog crap flavored toothpaste.

the bleeding continues . . . . .

Wait until Hillary Clinton wins office and Andrew Cuomo appears as her Vice President.  I think appraisers are fully aware of who BANKrolled Mr. Cuomo’s current position in New York (yes there was a hint in there).

Sometimes my brain literally leaps to the “right” conclusions without me even being aware of the process. It takes short cuts. Now, in fairness, we all agree that we cannot rely on our personal experiences alone to achieve proper appraisal results. We temper and quite frankly usually suppress our “personal PCs” results in favor of more traditional techniques that are becoming more and more cumbersome as time goes on. The more that academia gets involved in appraisal analyses and critiques, the further away we seem to get from reliable products (UAD & 1004MC comes to mind).

We listen to self serving morons promoting the ‘era of big data’ and how wonderful computer science & technology have become. “Why there is virtually NOTHING they cannot do!” Or, so go the claims. Yet with all this high powered computer ability and giant databases economists still cannot accurately predict stock markets; or even what the GDP, or inflation rate or unemployment rates will be more than a 1/4 in advance.

Why would we believe these same folks can accurately analyze the often subjective motives of real buyers reactions to specific pieces of real estate in terms of price and marketability?

‘They’ have attempted to replace the ‘art’ and experience based part of our profession with the arbitrarily purely analytical side. Analyses that fall abysmally short of even being real science since they modify or make so many assumptions to support their conclusions that the results are meaningless.

Zestimate used to publish disclaimers about how limited their product was. Most similar services don’t even do that. Most users wouldn’t understand the explanations anyway…they are not trained appraisers.

Despite most states prohibiting the use of the terms “appraisal” or “valuation” by anyone other than appraisers, it seems that these internet wizards keep getting a pass for their products. It does serious harm to Americans and the general public by offering services that are so easily confused with meaningful USPAP compliant appraisals which have been determined to be the “minimum acceptable standards” for federally regulated transactions.

Why would anyone be so willing to accept something that does not meet MINIMUM standards?

As an appraiser, one of the first thing I was taught; if you make a statement, written or oral of a specific properties value, you have done an appraisal and had best be able to back it up. This is just another example of the lending institutions, cutting corners to increase their profit.

None of these “helpful” companies are beneficial to the public or lending institutions. They only muddy the waters and create a false impression for the public and the banks.

An appraisal of a property, can only be accomplished by boots on the ground, we appraisers are the banks eyes and ears. No AVM or other computer generated value, can be considered valid.

The day loans are given out without an appraiser looking at the property is the day the economy crashes worst then ’08.

…the piling on continues…