If you want to promote the public trust in appraisal services, remind them there is no such thing as a safe mortgage loan.

“You don’t own it, until you make the final payment and the title is in your personal vault.” Plant the seed.

I spent more time asking amc’s to stop calling me than I ever spent soliciting them.

And I told off everyone unethical whom came across my desk.

Sometimes I think I should have been nicer to those people, when the email is empty and the phone is no longer ringing.

However, sanity has returned to my little office, and when I need an order, I pick up my old 1985 made in USA Bell phone with curly cord and make one or two outbound calls. Follow with an email. Then get back to doing what I like to do, providing credible appraisal services. Bidding everyday suburbia orders is for the birds.

It’s so easy a caveman with an appraisers license, a phone line and internet connection could do it.

Do You Know the Red Flags of Mortgage Fraud?

“The purpose of the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) is to promote and maintain a high level of public trust in appraisal practice by establishing requirements for appraisers.”

TAF is revising their USPAP dictionary. Apparently there are terms unique to appraisal that cannot be defined in the English language by anyone other than themselves.

Glaringly missing is any proposal to define exactly what TAF means by “Promote and maintain a high level of public trust…” Many if not most of their actions with all the unnecessary USPAP revisions since the mid 1990’s have served only to undermine that trust.

If listing agents aren’t pulling building records, nor it seems asking the owners to document what they’ve done, who did it, and when it was done, measuring the property, filling out the MLS in its entirety (what do you mean its Unknown if you have central AC), and basically choosing to be uninformed, how can they inform others? If in a hot market, one only has days to write an offer, how are buyers agents informing their clients when no home inspection is done prior to offer, there’s no time for an independent appraisal, and local zone history documents can take a few weeks to obtain?

Some months back, this lack of being well informed came to a head when an advertised home (5 Br, 3 Ba, 2,500 sf), turned out to be a 1 Br, 1 Ba, 1,250 sf with a 1,250 sf basement complete with 4 Br, and 2 Ba. Being in CA, basements are like ghosts, and neither the investor (all cash purchase $600,000 / no appraisal), the listing agent, the buyers agent, nor the buyer new how to identity a basement. After some $100,00 in improvements, after being in contract for $800,000, the market value was $550,000.

Seek the truth.