Staff Appraisers, Monopolies, Labor Shortages…
The issue of staff appraisers at AMCs and more….
Kilts, Labor Shortages, High Performance Homes, Monopolies, Politics, Surveys and a new direction for VaCAP… all within the last 24 hours!
Yesterday was the 2017 Virginia Coalition of Appraiser Professionals (VaCAP) Annual Conference, while we discussed our mission, accomplishments and goals, we voted unanimously to change our by-laws to allow our continued growth. Moving forward our processes will be streamlined and we will be offering educational opportunities for our members. We discussed current issues in Louisiana with the FTC and how the outcome will impact the industry throughout the country, monopolistic control over the industry and the use of our data by private entities. We also got a bit of humor when one of our members showed up wearing a Kilt. Not sure if he was kidding when he challenged us to all start wearing kilts or not, but some of us just don’t have the legs to pull it off. All in good fun.
We would like to thank Mark Waring, Vice President of Bain-Waring Builders for speaking with us on High Performance Homes and Roma’s Restaurant for hosting our conference and providing the delicious meals.
Elsewhere things were happening.
Our friends at the South Carolina Coalitions of Appraisers posted Mark Skapinetz‘ survey in response to recent articles about the shortage of appraisers. The authors of these articles did not source appraisers for factual information. It is a simple survey of nine questions. They are mostly open ended questions so you could write books if you choose. The only requirement is that you keep it clean. Although the responses are anonymous, VaCAP is confident the responses will be shared once the survey is completed. Take the survey here.
While we are on the topic of appraiser shortages, Yahoo Finance released results of a study about labor shortages and how Americans are distrusting of Corporations. Interesting to learn it is not just appraisers and that most consumers have similar views as appraisers. Read the story and the results of the study here.
As all Virginia residents know and hopefully voted, yesterday was the Primaries. The Republican Governors Race is close, very close. We will have to wait to see what happens
AMCs Hiring Staff Appraisers
VaCAP has a presence at most VREAB Board Meetings; the meeting on May 16th was no different. However, because training on DPOR processes was part of the meeting, we all left early thinking the VREAB was pretty much done with appraiser issues. We were wrong.
After the training, the VREAB discussed the issue of staff appraisers at AMCs. The meeting minutes do not reflect the conversations; however, we are excited the issue was discussed.
In case you did not know, the issue of AMCs hiring staff appraisers was sent to the Housing Committee by the General Assembly this past session. The issue is very much alive and VaCAP will continue to address this issue. If anyone was present at this meeting during this discussion, please share what transpired. See the meeting minutes here.
Thank you for supporting VaCAP.
- VaCAP Supports Shane Lanham’s Legal Fight - September 10, 2024
- It’s Just Responsible Journalism! - February 21, 2024
- Limitations for Damages Against Appraisers - January 9, 2024
It would be great to take a hard look at testing facilities and the trends from USPAP that show the results from applicants who have taken the certification and general tests. The results are shocking and show that testing facilities are manipulating the amount of appraisers entering the field. Consider this if you are a testing facility and you can fail over half of the applicants the first time well then you can pad your pockets when applicants come to retest. It is happening in every level as well as for instructors and should be looked in too.
I passed all 3 tests first time around, with increasingly better grades. CRA here, and had tested for jr, licensed, then cert. Paying for the pretesting was certainly worth it.
Not that any of that matters, with such little emphasis on ethics as it relates to what’s happening with amc’s, the testing is not properly focused. A test inclusion should be an on-site challenge; You must obtain a C&R order from an amc right here, cold call over the phone.
I’d like to see amc assignment persons pass those tests, the whole amc industry would collapse overnight, they could not pass those tests.
I don’t know, been 10 years. God, please don’t make me retest.
So great. I just spent an hour on that survey for you. Game over.
I would like to add that the South Carolina coalition didn’t come up with the survey. I did.
Thanks for the survey Mark. Will you share the results?
I will but not for a little bit as we are going to go over all the data and come up with our findings and write a white paper and more. So it may be a little bit before we throw it out there.