We aren’t getting enough of the details to give you an intelligent or informed answer.

I quoted a bid on 12/30/21 for an inspection 01/01/2022 at $7500. My holiday rate for a complex job. I was then told (same call) that the results had to be turned in by 01/07 or 01/10 at the absolute latest in order to meet certain state-subsidized program requirements for homeless housing. It was also a purportedly historic property which has unique property tax ramifications.

As soon as I heard that due date I told them I’d have to double it. They agreed. It was that important to them, and I had to bring in an associate in order to hit that deadline on a very complex job.

When we got out to the property it became clear there were more properties involved. Normally THAT would have resulted in a fee increase but since we were already at what I considered a near double premium, we just absorbed the extra burden. We had done our advance homework. The extra lots just were not apparent on paper, plans or deed information when ordered. Sometimes that just happens.

There are cases where a third charge could be warranted. Particularly if the scope of work was significantly understated when ordered; or a lender came back and said they want an additional value under certain conditions, or an attorney said they also need a retrospective value date in a divorce case. If the appraiser also had to work on a national holiday or weekend to hit an expedited delivery date, that’s a legitimate charge.

You haven’t told us why the appraiser wanted to charge more after the first two quotes.
It may also be that the AMC is trying to add more. Ask them for an explanation of the additional charges and then ask us again. If it’s no more than an AMC trying to hustle more money to hit a certain percentage of the total, we’ll certainly offer our views on that.

Quick question, in ND, can an appraiser charge a buyer multiple times? They charged me 900 to begin with. Then 650 for expedited appraisal. Why would they ask for more money after charging us a 2nd time?

good on you mike. Tooo much government guarantees

Yet for some inexplicable reason they have not been able to eliminate the unnecessary AMC from the process.

How odd that such a well qualified industry can’t achieve the most basic objective to expediting the process.

Let’s try an experiment. Let them take ALL THEIR portfolio loans appraisals “in house” and see how they do for five or ten years before piling more risk on taxpayers.

The biggest issue that I see is this, coming from the state burro-ocracy:

“In a press release issued Monday by the Conference of State Bank Supervisors, Kruse said banks in the state are well qualified to take appraisals in-house.

“North Dakota financial institutions are community based and relationship oriented,” she said. “They are well prepared to fairly and accurately assess property values, which will provide relief to the existing supply of appraisers.”

Kathy made the point that property data is pretty sketchy and variable across North Dakota. Since that’s the case, how can we believe the ‘banks’ can do a better job performing EVALUATIONS than appraisers doing APPRAISALS?

The other issue is EVALUATIONS have no known standards by which they must be performed, as we have with USPAP. Bank A can have EVALUATIONS performed under their guidelines, while Bank B’s may be totally different and uses a different type Evaluator than Bank A uses.

An Evaluator can be anyone the bank chooses, and doesn’t have to be licensed. I’m not even sure if there is any kind of ‘required’ or suggested training necessary to become an Evaluator.

Yet it’s probably safe to bet the ratio of foreign investors is lower in these areas than incorporated mls areas. I’d gladly pay double to be in one of those last remaining independent arenas.

Oh the jr days of swinging by the county seat, driving by many sales with accompanying county paper records. Sorting then forming a comprehensive market picture. One time they even supplied me dot matrix printouts. No problem and I’d still prefer those formats if they were available. Local data is just that, and sending it elsewhere does nothing more than bring in out of area interests. Big picture.

Side note 1: As per the state lilcensing board, there are currently 335 active appraiser licenses total in the state. This includes 33 apprentices and those licensed from areas like Minneapolis, MN, Sioux Falls, SD and Billings, MT – who though about 3 hours from ND have many appraisers in large firms who routinely work on large appraisal projects within ND.

Side note 2: Though I have been nicknamed Kate by a few people in my life,  I am not the same person as Kate Berry who contributed to the article, nor am I related to her in any way.

Kathy, the solution to the challenges you cite (and they are very real issues) is actually very easy but the stakeholders have to want to do it. Uphill battle though with the banks because they WANT waivers.

Any who read these blogs know I’m no fan of CoreLogic. Despite that, YOUR state is exactly the kind of scenario where use of their Regional (statewide?) Matrix system could really be a blessing to all appraisers, and even agents. Unquestionably it benefits sellers and possibly buyers.

The day of the dinosaur local mls is over as the only information source (though they COULD still survive by encouraging professionalism.and other local services). It’s something that perhaps the NDAA may consider looking in to.

Dave,

Based on a spreadsheet from the state licensing office, and removing assessors and distant appraisers, the actual count of actively working appraisers in ND is 179 with license classifications Licensed, Certified Residential or Certified General. These are the appraisers living in ND and, like myself, border cities that are dually licensed but work ND on a constant basis. I live in a sister city across the state line in MN but work out of Fargo, ND. My work load is about 70% ND and 30% MN due to the geographic nature of the population. Additionally, there are 31 active apprentices in ND at this time as well – with a good handful up for licensing upgrades at the next state board meeting. Using these numbers (not including apprentice appraisers) our ratio is about 1:4,220. This number is truly not that far off of your CA statistics of 1:3,571.

The biggest issue here in ND is the geography and lack of public records. The majority of our population is in 4 cities/metro areas leaving a vast majority of the state with low population – and low sales activity. It does not pay to live in a remote area and work full time as an appraiser. There is not enough work there. This is why many appraisers here work from a metro area and cover several counties, like previously stated by another appraiser from ND.

ND is the nineteenth largest state in physical area, the fourth smallest by population, and the fourth most sparsely populated state (per Wikipedia). A huge majority of the state has no MLS service and these appraisers spend copious amounts of time tracking the sales and trends in these areas.

Additionally, the state STILL accepts deed recordings without actual sales amounts on them – even though we are no longer a non-disclosure state. Picture, if you will, a state where public records are non-existent in much of the geographic area as well (many rural township records are in the township officials possession – in their homes – not located in readily available public places or online!) Many officials here are volunteer or part time. There is often long lags in their return on correspondence when tracking information.

That being said, I believe this says a lot for the time involved in the appraisal process in rural ND, the difficulty in the scope of work, travel and research necessary to produce credible results. With such difficulty in tracking this as a full time appraiser, I find it hard to believe that a blanket waiver in ND- where there is little ‘readily available’ evidence of marketability or statistical data (in the rural areas) is a basis for safe and sound lending decisions.
The appraiser number count is not so far off other states, but the availability of data in the state is far behind most others. ND lenders have a history of historically low foreclosure rates – maybe, just maybe, it’s due to the quality of the work being produced by the appraisal profession in the state.

Kudos to my fellow appraisers.

Dean, good job! Let us know if we can be of any assistance.

(714) 366 9404 or name link

I think our high cont in the 2000’s was over 25,000

Man that was fast. The second I finished posting that, new AI newsletter article.

There goes the majority of condo work for freddie guys. Bye bye, never coming back.

Freddie Mac Expands ACE Eligibility for Condominium Purchases and Refinances

Add 25% minimum cost increase to all future requests, if not much more than that. Calculate the previous income from all condo work in a year, extract what percent of your total income that was. That is your new cost of service increase multiplier. Multiple your remaining work product fee by 1.x to compensate.

Yes, mis the pir’s, simple drive by’s, all of that. I don’t think the figures for how much lost income we’ve experienced as a group are accurate. Raised deminimus, loss of pir, alternative non licensed people picking up inspections at discounts, day one cu, just all of it took away one hefty portion of work load at a time.

If lenders think we’ll continue to be able to provide similar costs for full on appraisals without all the bread and butter simple work in the future they’re wrong. Fewer appraisers, higher product and insurance costs. An almost complete elimination of simple more profitable services. The full 1004 should have tripled in cost by now and it’s moving that direction swiftly. For every substitution they make, this drives the consumer cost for full service upward dramatically. The distributors reluctance to support our necessary comparative income base is why so many appraisers continue to quit. I do the same thing my parents did and I do it much better. My income is a fifth of what theirs was when I first moved on appraisal 15 years ago. What the hell happened on this rock? When my wife is done with college, well, I already have one foot out the exit door. I don’t exist as a licensed appraiser and pay all these big dollar fees for overhead and access just so I can save a stranger a dollar or a day.

They used to hand them out like candy (at the lenders expense), but now a days I’m lucky to get a handful after each disaster. Keep in mind, I only took the ones inside the county, but outside the disaster area. How from a driveway only view (the rural house not visible), can I tell if the house or perhaps its rear facing canyon location sustained fire damage, fire dept. damage, etc.

Seek the truth.

I can agree with that but I bet I haven’t done but 5 or 6 of those I’m my 25+ yrs in the biz. Every now and then we’ll have a bit of flooding rain or maybe a tornado. The ones I’ve done are between 150 – 200 because of my rural area which requires a 50-75 mile round trip per inspection. Maybe that’s why I don’t get many. I guess the new “Professional Inspectors” will get all those now.

My memory may be off, but as a former California appraiser, I seem to remember there being over 20,000 appraisers back in the mid 2000’s. If there’s just 9,800 left, it’s amazing how many left the profession. I decided to leave my home state and settle in the great state of North Dakota. Doing my part to help with the so called “appraiser shortage” I guess.

Dean….thank you for your service to your peer appraisers in your state. It’s a labor of love which I fully respect. (I have done so in a different capacity in WA so have worn similar loafers.)

It’s really important to ‘count’ people correctly. The ASC Appraisal Registry is useful, but just by itself pulling up appraisers in a state, it is not 100% accurate. (Neither is the National count.) I downloaded the Excel list of ND appraisers, then went through that line by line to eliminate ND appraisers by the same name which also hold licenses in other states. Now granted, I may have missed a few, but not over 70 as your ‘count’ implies. So I think the count I did is reliable. (It does not include Trainees, which you may include.)

I recall when I downloaded the ASC list it indeed showed over 225 appraisers in ND.  But that’s a compilation of all licenses, not of non-duplicated individuals. As an example, one of your appraisers holds 10+ licenses in various states. That appraiser was counted 1x on my list.

Don’t tell FEMA this E J B, but I wish every week they would declare my county an emergency hit county. It’s amazing how fires in less than 1% of the county, can trigger disaster inspections for the remaining 99% ($100 a pop). Back in the day, (2003 ?), pre-HVCC and working in a large office, I can remember having over a hundred active disaster inspection reports that needed to be done (due in a week). There’s nothing like saying with 100% confidence that a 24th floor condo was not adversely affected by a rural fire from some 40 miles North.

Seek the truth.

With a state population of 35 million, and +/-9,800 licensed appraisers (not including trainees / +/- 730 ), the state of CA has a ratio of 1 to 3,571. As my county has a ratio of 1 to 3,373, perhaps my situation (a like ratio), is similar throughout the entire state. 1 in 8 of all appraisers live in my state.

Seek the truth.

As a self labeled big city appraiser, i would choose suburban, then urban, then rural as it relates to difficulty. That being said, living in a diverse market in part this week I completed an urban assignment (24th floor / panoramic Ocean/Bay view), a suburban assignment (1.3 million dollar PUD), and have a 5 acre rural assignment due next Monday. On my plate for next week is a detached condo, an age restricted (55+) twin home, and a fourplex purchase for (1.1 million). Although overall I agree with you, big city appraisers perhaps have it more difficult when it comes to the requirement of constantly switching gears relating to property types and forms.

Seek the truth.