Just wow. Do you have any idea what impact one claim can have? Especially a FALSE one against an appraiser? There is also the fact that ANYONE can file a complaint against an appraiser, with NO consequences for false claims. The financial, mental and physical health impacts, etc. Not to mention the “stories” that are in the media where appraisers received death threats? No amount of CYA and completing a bullet proof report can save anyone at this point. The ramifications of just doing our jobs, and doing them well while meeting all rules/regs/certs can come back to bite you. I have never met or seen an appraisal that was biased, flawed and not complaint-yes. I would assist any way I could to remove any biased appraiser from the profession so far I have not seen proof of one. May you never experience one of these claims-but then again maybe you need to, and go through the absolute hell that some have and are going through to humble you.

I’ve witnessed this too many times..

Thank you for posting. Solace lies in a notion that ‘education’ is a life long process. People can change. People do change. In the modern world they often change based on the highest and best possible outcome as they perceive most probable. The delivery mechanisms of public perception now drive policy everyone is demanded to abide. When ideological compliance becomes law. Just one problem; People still have a choice of more than one informational channel or technical app subscription.

A curious set of contradictions with a condescending tone begging for a response (e.g., “…people need to man up and stop whining and being small and spiteful”). I’ll bite with some hope of being constructive and a bit of amusement. Just because you don’t see something, doesn’t mean it’s not there. Humans have a broad range of abilities when it comes to the recognition of patterns within seemingly random data sets; what can be obvious to some is completely unseen by others, such is life. Gaps in knowledge, wisdom, curiosity, and experience factor heavily as well. A common precipitant of creeping communism is a broad ideological sympathy with the long-term goals of a tyrannical state matched by an incuriosity about measuring its touted claims and good intentions with tangible reality and the results of those policies. Very often this isn’t entirely the sympathizer’s fault as the state and it’s army of bureaucrats makes every effort to mask its deformities and keep the fantasy in tact (as Bastiat pointed out: communism is based on the popular belief that everybody can live off of everybody else). Finally, the education system was captured by Marxists several generations ago creating another burdensome layer for those who are “educated”.

How do you handle basic ethics such as transparent billing practices and amc’s?

Gettin’ out the popcorn..gonna be some strong reactions to that one! LOL. 🙂

I am a busy residential appraiser and work in a large metro area, and don’t feel any of the pressures the author describes nor feel the motivations of government actors to make life more “equitable” are dishonest or misplaced.

Do a proper job on your reports and the reports withstand all scrutiny,…if one “hits the number” or not. If your reports are good than they will withstand and rebuff the Reconsideration of Value requests and substantiate your work product.

The sky is NOT falling, our profession is not being censored into nonexistence and people need to man up and stop whining and being small and spiteful…and yes, I agree it’s frustrating when one has to remove innocuous words like “the subject is in a desirable location, proximate and convenient to shopping” but this too shall pass.

Lastly, I never met an appraiser whether, biased, prejudiced or otherwise, who had the time to conjure up a biased report…

This last friday’s Ron Paul with Chris Rosinni was worth a watch. / ‘why kamalas price controls will lead to shortages.’
https://www.youtube.com/c/ronpaullibertyreport

One of those items demanded of in policy grading is to use full service human appraisers less, and use automated lender controlled avm automatic valuation model utilities more. To affirm an illusionary fictitious concept that human appraisers are biased, but lender controlled automatic values are not biased, and that using waivers and skipping the appraisal process entirely is a sound practice.

The lender is an interested party to the transaction whom stands to earn substantial amounts of money on commissions, fees, loan handling. The appraiser only gets paid a fixed fee once regardless of the appraisers market value conclusions. The appraiser is the only impartial non commissioned non advocate whom does not have an interest in the transactions final disposition, all we do is provide ‘fair market value analysis’.

There is a clear conflict of interest issue involved with the elimination of full service human appraisers or substituting appraisers out for automation. There is clear competency and qualification issues involved with substituting appraisers for non licensed persons (pdc’s property data collectors) or proprietary avm algorithms which are not subjected to meaningful or adequate oversight. (per the CFPB’s final rule on AVM’s this July. Lenders will self certify their black box proprietary avm systems are well managed with a one page form submitted every other year or so, no external auditing will be required or allowed.)

FHFA scorecard 2024.
https://www.fhfa.gov/sites/default/files/2024-03/2024-Scorecard_1.pdf
Continue efforts to minimize single-family appraisal bias and improve valuation equity, including by supporting FHFA’s implementation of the Property and Valuation Equity (PAVE) action plan
.
https://www.fhfa.gov/blog/insights/reducing-valuation-bias-by-addressing-appraiser-and-property-valuation-commentary
How it started. Scraping the entire CU database of millions of appraisals, they found a handful of examples they could form an argument around. Not much, but they did find a few examples. That was the language side.

https://www.fhfa.gov/blog/statistics/have-property-valuation-inequalities-diminished-in-black-and-hispaniclatino-neighborhoods
04/2024 update FHFA. This is the statistics side. This is junk science which means absolutely nothing. Analyzing appraisals coming in ‘higher or lower comparative to sales contract pricing’, and parsing the data by race. Market conditions changed dramatically over ‘phase 1’ (an over 10 year period) as we exited a recession and housing crash, then entered a period of historical low lending rates. Then ‘phase 2’ (1.5 years) is a cool off period where the mortgage lending rates doubled and inflation skyrocketed. The market conditions are completely different, of course there will be ratio changes in buyer seller behaviors as that relates to forming contracts and negotiating price. These people have tortured the data until it confessed what they wanted to hear. This is not a valid approach to forensic data review or meaningful statistical science.

If appraisals came in higher or lower then contracted pricing is irrelevant to any argument around ‘appraiser bias’. If anything of value can be inferred of their studies on the matter, it reveals that the appraiser provides some consistent measure of protection to shield minority groups from predatory sales and lending efforts.

For the wealth gap, that’s income education and cultural based. Appraisers only analyze the market values and price relationships others have already formed and negotiated upon. ‘Housing equity’ by tampering with valuation conclusions, ignoring underlying causes related to education, employment, income, access, the economy. Completely irresponsible and counter productive regulatory approaches which will only make the problems worse.

Control the food = control the people. The creation of Gov’t dependency in any form is tyranny.

It gives one perspective when you do a HECM appraisal and the elderly homeowner is literally crying because “their property taxes are essentially a rent to the Gov’t I can no longer afford to pay”.

Tyrannical.

And the Fabians before that among others. These people told us what they were doing and going to do, but too many people thought that “It would never happen here.”

The Communist Manifesto lays it out and food production is crucial as agriculture is in part of three planks. https://greattrib.com/geo-political/10-planks-communist-manifesto-america

Best wishes for your future. None of us signed up to be social justice warriors.

Communists always go after the farmers and food production first. What we’re seeing is nothing new. Note that there have been scores of large food production fires over the past few years. Last summer, I drove past that dairy in the Texas Panhandle where, what was it, 20,000 cows were killed? It’s wasn’t back in production.