Howl at the moon AMC.

You must provide your resume, a signed copy of your W-9, and scanned copies of your license and E & O insurance with your application so we have all the information we need to evaluate your credentials. If you have additional certifications or designations (e.g. MAI) please mention that on your application.If you are already registered with us, please update your license information to ensure that we have your most up to date information on file.Feel free to reach out to us if you have questions. Regards,

The modified version of a request to join yet another parasite AMC is posted above. Notice that they are looking for SMART commercial appraisers in Texas. Where is the information about their company? They want a smart commercial appraiser to provide them with a copy of license, E&O, resume, W-9, etc. Where is the information about their parasitic company? Oh…they will pay within  30 days? Pay WHAT? No upload fees (a smart appraiser will not be paying that crap anyway) Damn right they will pay within 30 days….all of my clients do! Tell me why I need them? I wish I could get a list of their smart Texas appraisers as I need someone to mow my grass! Why do appraisers put up with this crap?

Yeah, my step dad had a heart attack, moms got cancer, and I had a non cancer gut tumor the size of a softball. We’re firmly committed to a lower stress environment and you can’t please them all. You’d probably find my near daily email efforts to these amc solicitors to be very insightful. I often forward them to management and various authors on this website for content inspiration. I continue to advocate for my appraiser peers, even though most of them would rather simply undercut me for quick cash. The world is what we make of it and ethics matter the most to me. Rest assured the concepts I promote on the blogs here are factual and direct examples of my rebuttals to the daily amc solicitors.

I applaud your discussion over the link between working with AMCs and early heart disease Baggins.  In all of the years that I’ve read appraisal related articles and blogs this is the first time that I’ve run across this discussion.  Had I not experienced this effect early on in my office I would have never believed you; however, I did experience it first hand.

During the early 2000s I recall two appraisers who died at relatively young ages from cardiac arrest.  I then made the decision to hire a young woman in 2001 to take some of the burden off of my shoulders.  I was 40 at the time.  Over time she was trained to manage our office to free me up for more complex appraisal work and reviews.  She was 21 when she was hired.  Although we never sought out AMCs as clients, we found more and more of our bank clients turning to them. We were forced to deal with working with them in order to keep the clients.  To say that it was a miserable experience is an understatement.  I was grateful every single day that my office manager was dealing with the flea bag AMCs because I was rarely called upon to intervene or answer their insane questions.  Within a few years the stress of dealing with AMCs caught up with her.  She was a healthy 27 year old  with no weight issues at the time of the incident.  At first she complained about pains in her arms.  When she went to see a physician they said it was heart related and inquired about her daily stress level. I wasn’t blind, I was well aware of what she was dealing with each day.  During the weeks that she was off work I fired every AMC and let them know in detail the impact that their daily DEMANDS had on a 27 year old woman.   Never again did we work with an AMC.  When HVCC hit we lost well over half of our existing client base overnight. The work load per appraisal soon doubled and the fees were cut in half. For kicks I asked a few friends if they would be willing to go to work if their pay was cut in half. I asked a few more if they they would be willing to go to work if their work load doubled. I never bothered to ask how many would go to work if their work load doubled and their salary was cut in half. At age 48 I made the decision to close the firm after nearly 20 years in the business. I loved the “profession” more than you can imagine but simple logic told me that it was time to leave in 2009.

Make sure that you understand the connection between stress, heart disease, and your chosen “profession” every day appraisers because it’s as real as the sun, the moon, and the stars. Bravo Baggins!  Someone should write a full blown article on this topic which is never discussed.

I would like to believe that my previous post (see above) makes more sense when you consider the impact of stress and the likelihood of early death in this business.

The devil is in the details. We don’t need managed, nor is it healthy to apply such management from persons less experienced than us. In proper application, an amc would only hire currently licensed appraiser and realty persons whom have more experience than the vendors. It’s all backwards man, all of it. Wayne, those lackies you speak of are raking record income. This bubble is destined to pop. My buddy ran across a husband wife team which rolls out 14 a week at 375. Systemic risk is here. Will FNMA actually use the CU system to stop these people? They set the standard which keeps me down and keeps you out. Admit it, if those amc people were not in place, you would be able to fold origination work in like any other task.

This article is interesting because under the appraiser amc scenario analysis, working with these control freak companies raises your risk of early heart attack in your 60’s by a minimum of 34%. LOL. That’s some revenge news for the amc appraisers, you’re not in control of your workflow and are subsequently raising your early death risk by a third. No wonder the amc’s can’t find servicers, they all die early from the overwhelming stress. Ha! But what does science and fact have to do with appraisal management? Care to be a disposable hero?

Just my opinion…IF YOU care what any AMC wants you are NOT marketing yourself or your company. Our office has not done an appraisal for any AMC in YEARS and YEARS and never will! Market yourself and your company to the point where you turn down five or six assignments each day….and you will not give a RATS ASS what any AMC wants! Just my opinion….now go do as you please! LOL

Hey.  I had wondered what your last day on the job as an appraiser looked like.  Ha! In climates of high demand the majority of amc’s are not getting sufficient traction to compete with direct companies with solid base minimums.  It may be a challenge to find the direct lender with 400/500 or even higher base minimums, but they’re out there.  Once you find them all you need is approval and 3 or 4 of them to run a whole business around.  Raise the bar, the clients will be forced to follow.  Craft your own approach and the only self imposed rule to follow is demand direct w/ a base minimum which is enough for you.  If I need to land a bid I call in instead and then sell an immediate assignment scenario and if they refuse to assign immediately I withdraw my bid. I viewed an accidental email list in bid quote. 50 appraisers contacted over a single order. These companies are behaving like telemarketers. Imagine if all the appraisers took the time to call back. That mass solicitation would be immediately ineffective and actually impossible to continue with.

Hi Rachel. I’ve often wondered about the same question myself, if there is a list of all hands whom helped build the file in one form or another?  /

It seems that these requests are rooted in the problem of scale. Many distributors seek to run maximum volume with minimal future responsibility. They likely find themselves in challenging scenarios regarding organized document management. The initial drive to inclusion of this data within report was to allow the amc to be completely relieved of those specific long term data management responsibilities. The more they process the greater their long term business costs become.   /

Dave, I’m keen to not including EO but have not heard this do not include license in report argument. That seems benign compared to the insurance binder which only covers error, and does not indemnify anyone. People do get confused about the large eo coverage numbers, easily mistaking that for indemnity or total loss coverage.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/17/why-my-greatest-achievement-at-goldman-sachs-was-quitting-commentary.html

Walking away is easy, just step to the door and jump.  No parachute required.  Blind faith is required however.