Tagged: fees

The Way Things Used To Be - Appraisal fees unchanged in two decades 127

The Way Things Used To Be

“We haven’t had a raise in two decades.” Give me a break! It’s a common complaint in our industry that real estate appraisers haven’t had a raise in two decades. The argument goes that twenty years ago, the standard fee for an appraisal was $350. Fast forward twenty years and it’s still $350. That’s a great sound bite, but the actual logic is deeply flawed. In real terms, we’ve had a huge raise thanks to the massively reduced amount of time we spend on our appraisals. It’s something I’ve written about before (Never Had a Raise in 20 Years), but...

Stop Senate Bill 2155 in the Senate, Fake Claim of an Appraisers Shortage 49

Stop S.2155 in the Senate

Call to action to oppose Senate Bill 2155, also opposed by an overwhelming majority of Americans… Appraisers, We are placing an immediate nationwide call to action to oppose Senate Bill 2155 currently in the United States Senate. Senate Bill 2155 has a provision, (sec 103) which allows a bank to waive an appraisal in rural communities. This will be detrimental for homeowners and communities in rural areas. A loss of income will also occur for appraisers who cover rural counties. To see the text of S.2155, click here. The Independent Community Bank Association has been hard at work promoting this bill....

Price of this Fiasco May be the Downfall of the US Real Estate Market 16

The Price of Big Data Valuation Fiasco

"Price" of this Fiasco may be the Downfall of the American Real Estate Market… I Choose Not to Be Part of the Big Data Valuation Revolution The big data and automated valuation explosion will ultimately destroy the real estate industry and it will take decades for it to recover. The facts are, we live and work in a price-per-square-foot industry. The square footage data used in the so-called “official record” in local tax records is in error enough to alter home values and it’s an equal opportunity offender – values can be too low or too high. And, it’s wrong...

Price Fixing? Why is the FTC Involved at All? FTC vs Louisiana Hearing 32

Price Fixing? Why is the FTC Involved at All?

FTC "Price Fixing" Allegations Hearing Update On Thursday, Feb 22, 2018 there were oral arguments presented in the Federal Trade Commission building at 2 pm. The meeting adjourned just before 3:30 pm. There were 55 to 65 people in attendance, which we were told is an extraordinarily larger crowd than typical. This is a very unique case. On the FTC side there were two lawyers – one male, one female. On the Louisiana side there were four males at the head counsel table and three or four other attorneys. I have never attended one of these hearings, so I really did...

Appraisal Management Companies AMCs Have Failed 63

AMCs Have Failed

…it will be the appraisal management companies that are going to be held to the fire, not the appraiser… In the spring of 2002 my wife and I bought our third house; an older cape cod in a great school system where our son would start kindergarten in the fall and his sister the year after. This house literally was 1970 inside. It had deep red shag carpet in the family room and sculptured avocado green carpet upstairs. Not to worry, it blended well with the sunshine yellow stove, bright orange counter top and turquoise and pink bathrooms. After 3...

Send it to India & Save Billions! 10

Send it to India & Save Billions!

Appraisal? Obviously its only worth ten bucks – off to India with it… Most appraisers (and consumers) know the difference between ‘right and wrong’. We don’t need the tortuous, twisted ambiguities of ASB straddling the fence, on all issues to know what is and is not okay. So far ALL they do is hypothesize that bad products can theoretically be used, IF they conform to all the USPAP rules that we all already know they fall short of. As in every single exception being sought for regulatory exceptions in the financial sector, only impractical, not very probable, best case scenarios...

Evaluation NOT required to Meet USPAP - AGA Views on Legislative Bills 17

The Devil is Always in The Details

An evaluation is NOT required to meet USPAP requirements… I went over the bills VaCAP requested action on (see VaCAP Legislative Call to Action) and wanted to share my views as it appears they were interested in individual views. HB 1453 Real estate appraisers; changes definition of evaluations. Introduced by: R. Lee Ware SUMMARY AS INTRODUCED: Real estate appraisers; evaluations. Changes the definition of "evaluation" from an analysis, opinion, or conclusion relating to the nature, quality, value, or utility of specified interests in, or aspects of, identified real property to an opinion of the market value of real property or real...

Bill Removes Consumer Protection and Legalizes Bad Behavior by AMCs 16

Legislative Call to Action

Bill removes consumer protection and legalizes bad behavior by AMCs. Now is the time to contact your legislators with comments. They want to hear from you! HB 1453 – Changing the definition of evaluations –  has passed the General Laws Committee and was read in the House of Delegates on February 1, 2018 for the first time. SB  655 – Capping fees of an AMC to 20% and disclosing the AMC fee to the consumer – is on the agenda for Monday February 5th in the General Laws and Technology Committee. Please contact your representatives and the committee members and...

Hybrid Reports: ASB USPAP Q&A Justifies Alternative Appraisal Reports 15

Hybrid Reports ASB Q&A

What the cohorts promoting hybrid reports are overlooking is APPRAISAL PRACTICE… Appraisers, On Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2018, the Appraisal Standards Board released their latest Q&A document (see embedded PDF below). This document appears to justify reasons why appraisers can complete the new ‘hybrid’, ‘bifurcated’, ‘desktop’ and ‘alternative’ appraisal reports (regardless of what they are named), although the Q&A document is written ‘generically’ and does not specifically mention those categorical names. I have two issues with this Q&A document: it does not discuss the appraiser’s true responsibility when completing certain kinds of these reports; for more on that see the additional...

Three Bills Concerning Our Profession Introduced - Call To Action 5

Call to Action

Three bills introduced concerning our profession… Fellow Appraisers, The 2018 Virginia General Assembly has begun and there are three bills that have been introduced concerning our profession. VaCAP is not behind any of these bills and we honestly do not know how they came about. We were truly blind-sided by them. We ask that you contact your representatives and offer your support, opposition and suggestions. It is also a good idea to contact the committee members that will be discussing and voting on each of these bills. We will continue to follow the bills and alert you when they appear...

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