Category: Snippets

By my math, this is a 18-day process… appraisal part only took 3 days as a rush… Despite being approached all the time to add our firm’s name to an appraisal management company, we decline. However, when wealth management companies were forced by their parent company, they made arrangements to help attract better firms like ourselves to consider working with them: Pay our fee Respect our turn time quote Not inundate us with clerical addenda requests Last fall we were approached by 4 different AMCs because their wealth management clients demanded they fix the problem of not attracting the better...

“Phil Crawford and Mark Skapinetz break down the Appraiserfest 2018 Agenda! This will be the cutting edge event that no appraiser will want to miss! Register today and we will see you in San Antonio on November 1st, 2nd, and 3rd!!!” Here is the core Appraiserfest schedule that I believe will be subject to additions. Think of signing up for the event as a “rush appraisal” – just clear the deck and get it done now. It will help Phil & co. with planning for the event immensely.    

BREAKING: David versus Goliath Redux: Skapinetz versus Coester VMS – Case Direction Favors Underdog Court Refuses to Dismiss Lawsuit That Coester and His AMC Hacked Appraiser Mark Skapinetz’s Emails My colleague and friend, Georgia appraiser Mark Skapinetz, sued COESTERVMS.COM, INC. and BRIAN COESTER in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland last year for hacking his email account. Here is the evidence submitted. Coester subsequently filed a motion to dismiss. On February 9th, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis Denied The Motion to Dismiss for 3 of the 5 claims and the lawsuit will move forward. I find this whole matter very compelling – especially...

…standards written in weasel words… Appraisal is not rocket science, but it’s been around for about 300 years and it worked pretty well when the principles were kept simple and the consequences for ignoring them were disastrous. It would also have been nice if individual lending institutions still had to hold their own loans into perpetuity. The “Just Pap” is more unpopularly known as the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice, which came into being after the last big residential mortgage greeding frenzy (the failure of S&Ls in a 17%-mortgage-rate environment during the late 1980s). Before your friendly author proceeds...