McJunk is the scum of the earth education providers. They try to keep charging me on my debit card over & over for a membership they claim i agreed to. Buying 1 set of CE classes entitles them to recurantly charge you without your permission for future charges for classes EVERY YEAR, you will get charged, not in line with time of renewals. So if you want $400 CE You must never ever provide a credit card instead mail a check. They way they get you is recurring charge agreement buying 1 set of classes online. If they recharge you, they DONT TELL YOU, THEY F Take the money when they want out of your acct. You have 30 days to tell them F off and refund me or if you dont catch it, its non-refundable!! Also, when you cancel, YOU MUST WRITE A FORMAL LETTER, A PHONE CALL TO CANCEL DOESNT WORK, they will just keep taking your money until you choke the phone, threaten them with legal or document in a written letter you want all accounts closed. If you cancel a class package, they will recharge you next year. SAME THEFT ALL OVER AGAIN.The instructor in one of their classes bragged how McJunk is taking over, buying up all school providers, taking the CE education to next level unchallanged by Anyone to make millions in revenue as the #1 education-THIEF with expectation to grow exponentially becuz of their businesss model. Yep theivery and deceitful agreements will make you ALL that. Quit them and research other online education companies that DO NOT USE McJunks courses they license out to the Education company who try to – call it their own- on platform named Hondrous learning,-Thats McJunk profiting in disguise. BOYCOTT the company who steals from you and hides the truth. Thats BShit

True.

I dont think a single organization is going to be the long term solution either. There are two elements; national and state.

A single national group is not going to have the best chance of affecting necessary local changes. We can help, but in the end local state appraisers know whats good or bad about their states policies.

Local groups cant follow and coordinate the national issues as well as a national organization can.

The natural leadership would have been the professional peers but other than ASA and to some extent NAIFA, the traditional groups like AI have been sadly absent in all but their own very narrow special interests.

THAT is why I went looking for a national union back in 2014.

*g* The current ownership and administration of the website is what makes it viable. Anyone else trying to replicate ABs success would be hard pressed.

One cannot buy trust. Not Corlamode. Not CRN, Buzzy or anyone else.

Mike, I agree, but corralling appraiser into ONE effective professional group, is and has been the appraiser BIGGEST challenge. I’ve been in the appraisal profession for 40 years and as you know, uniting appraiser has never been accomplish.

Rest assured. This website was not bought by Corelogic and is still owned, managed and operated by working real estate appraisers. We received several offers with the highest at $50,000 but we are not planning on selling this site since we didn’t start it as a way to make money of off it. We run this website on personal time and money.

Add one more to that list EStreet Appraisal Company an AMC owned by New Penn Financial in PA. The worst run around and flat out lies about checks, trying to get paid. Take your chances then add in the cost of two weeks worth of your time trying to collect. Check this blog and better business bureau reports before accepting any work from unknown companies.

PLEASE UPDATE US ON THE TITLE, AND IF ITS TRUE THE CORE LOGIC BOUGHT THE SITE.

Alamode could have saved this profession but they chose not to.  When they were in charge of Mercury they could have simply allowed appraisers options to sort away amc’s vs direct assignments. The new Mercury owners could still do that to this day, but choose not to. I’m on long term vacation with Mercury because there is no user controls which lets me shield myself from amc’s. There is no user control which lets me solicit non amc members of Mercury directly. There is no user control which allows me to reject all orders presented which do not comply with my standard minimums. Mercury in my opinion, could have been a tool for justice, but it failed to deliver. The majority of controls are lender and amc focused. My business is not a truck stop motel with a permanent vacancy sign where just any drifter can come stay a while.

Imagine if Mercury identified and had user controls for amc vs direct assignment, had digital controls allowing appraisers to accept or reject the lender panel solicitation request up front, allowed vacation settings per individual client, automatically stopped requests if the request was not to the appraisers standard minimum, allowed variable fee setting per client and client type, had guaranteed accurate total fee billing notes mandatory including; amc, lender, and consumer billing, stated rate lock expiration dates, stated specifically if they have in house review or not, allowed maximum open order settings, etc, etc. I had a mercury order which I was ‘not allowed’ to type any free writing notes. Reasons to never buy the upgrade package until they get their act together. It’s the software providers whom allowed amc’s to be out of the box telecom endeavors. One cause of this proliferation is our own software providers failed to protect us and pandered to the larger profit base of lenders instead.

Several updated hud1 forms had line item entries for amc charges. That boat sailed but many think we should call it back to shore and put that in there. But then how to skirt junk fee rules?

As a StreetLinks/Assurant Valuations appraiser partner, you’re eligible for discounted education options through McKissock, LP, a leading provider of professional education. McKissock’s beneficial online appraisal courses allow you to focus on developing new career skills at your convenience.

What a joke. I don’t know why I’m on the email list. I have not done any work for SL. I guess McK has some type of arrangement wit SL.

Gee Nick, I could not agree with you more! I do not blame you at all. What if each of these companies offered me three times the normal fee and kissed me on the ear…I would absolutely refuse to work with them! Appraisers have five times as much work offered than we can accept. Tell these jerks to take a hike! I have no problem making a living without an AMC…can an AMC make a living without us?

Raymond the ‘how’ part is easy to state-more difficult to implement. First, ALL of us need to join our state appraiser coalitions in states that have them.

We ALSO all need to join the American Guild of Appraisers and use the clout of it’s 13 1/2 million member ‘parent’ union(s) (OPEIU AFL-CIO). Even NAR only has 1.2 million members. Our challenge is in getting many more appraisers to become a part of it so that national leadership considers ALL our issues to be THEIR issues.

FYI AGA is NOT a partisan guild. I happen to be an unpaid republican volunteer union organizer. I know some of our members are democrats, some are independents or other parties. We try to avoid being mired in the “either or” miasma of partisan politics.

Raymond, few state organizations can compete effectively with the competing interests of the AMCs and sometimes even the AI which has previously gone before the TAF and claimed to speak for all appraisers best interests, above even their own (Redondo Beach, CA).

ASA, NAIFA and a few others have been actively involved and seeking to reclaim our profession.

The reason you (and all of us) need to join state coalitions and the Guild and become involved is that this is a never ending fight. Hate to say it, but almost as soon as we win a hard fought victory of any type, the self serving parasites start another issue’ practice or proposal that needs to be beaten back.

A year+ ago CaCAP, AGA, ASA and others including the TAF helped suppress an already passed Bill in California called AB 624. The California Labor Federation was able to make a single call and get it buried in appropriations for over a year where we all expected it to ‘die’, but CaCAP wrote a few months ago indicating it was possibly coming back. We need many more volunteers to keep on top of things like this; but too many appraisers simply don’t have time. They are limited to 24 hour days unlike my own 30 to 48 hour days.

So called ‘Reconciliation forms” (often title company subsidiaries or affiliates) are infamous for providing appraiser job killing BPOs to which appraisers are asked to reconcile THEIR value opinions! Generally our standards don’t let us play that game; or at least not economically at the fees offered because we DO have standards and steps we must follow.

Independent appraisers simply can’t take on huge title companies and win as a rule. THAT is why you need AGA, VaCap, CaCAP and others.

The “When” part of your question is “when we have at least 20% to 25% of all licensed appraisers participating in SOME type of politically ACTIVE peer group or the American Guild of Appraisers.

If you are wondering, we DO have a spot for you! Call Jan Bellas (301) 220-4100.

1. StreetLinks

2. Valuation Partners

3. Clear Capitol

4. CosterVMS

5. AMCLinks

6. Nations Valuation

7. TSI

8. Dart Appraisal

9. Allstate Appraisal

10. Lincoln Appraisal & Settlement Services

11. Corelogic

12. Pro-tech

13. Metro-West

14. Frost & Associates

All the above AMC’s are bottom feeders in our industry and do not care about appraisal quality or the public trust, much less their appraiser “partners”.

1. Valuation Partners, I did about 5 or 6 appraisals for them back in 2010, was not paid called several times and was told they were having difficulty paying appraiser all over the country.  My only solution was to withhold delivery of a multi million property until payment was received.  Valuation Partners was screaming for the report calling several times a day, since their client a large bank was screaming at them, I held firm and my check was sent express. After that I never did another report for them and I believe they are no longer in existence.

2. Clear Capital, simply awful, never did one order for them and told them to simply remove me from their panel 3 yrs ago as I sick of being sent 10-15 order requests a week w/$225 fees and them having them call me asking me why I did not even respond.

3.  Street Links, I last did work for them 3 yrs ago and only if the fee was right, seems they have a lot of licensed appraisers, but for their clients who require a certified appraiser and for FHA, I could charge a decent fee.  My last report was a single family and they sent me a list of 50 additional sales, all of which were condos as it was obvious that their client wanted a lower value.  I said sure I’ll analyze each sale for an additional $50.00 per sale.  They then escalated it all they way up their chain to Tampa.  They would not agree to my request and I would not agree to their’s, in the end I ended up charging them an additional $250.00 for a few paragraphs of comments.  Simply not worth the time and headaches.   I have since fired all AMC’s, make much more money, have far less stress and more free time to enjoy life.

They be calling like telemarketers.  Care to work for us instead?

Those panel application letters are coming daily sometimes and I suspect there may be more vendor managers then there are vendors themselves at this point.  New ones keep springing up because they hear how lackluster their competition is and dare to dream they could ‘manage better’.

The managers ultimate guide to running a viable and successful amc:  Poll your amc employees.  Ask them how many aspire to elevate their career to actually become an appraiser in the future.  Offer them that carrer opportunity under the same terms as you offer your independent network vendors.  If the majority do not wish to be appraisers at some point in the future, fire everyone and start over.  Obviously the business modeling is counter productive to the shared interests appraisal management companies and appraisers are supposed to have with each other.   As I keep on telling you guys;  The majority of problems facing the appraisal management industry are rooted in improper and unjustifiably imbalanced allocation of funds.

Talk about the worst most god awfully misdirected marketing campaign in real estate history.  The appraisal management company soliciting for panel appraisers, while simultaneously bragging about exponential record setting business growth and accolades for most profitable this or that.  (with no attention and absolutely no mention to having increased appraiser compensation alongside for ALL of their panel appraisers.)  From an appraisers perspective, they might as well have stuck a hot iron through the PC screen and branded my face like a cattle.   Those amc manager guys are writing all these real estate articles lately.  As if we need to hear from the next marionette.

“If you want to know who is oppressing you.  First identify whom you are not allowed to criticize.”

Appraisers for hire.  We have experienced record setting business losses over the past decade, shed nearly every new employee and apprentice, been denied reliable earnings potential, been undercut by the least qualified participators in the industry, been denied reasonable communication with other licensed professionals, have to appease unlicensed middle manager telecom employees in violation of ethical management rules to get ahead of peer competition, and have been unduly burdened with excessive regulation so that high level wall street lenders, hedge fund purchasers, and vulture capitalists from all nations could be shielded from justice.  Please join us for brunch in Vegas.  We’ll hear from amc managers, top lobbyists, an ethics dissertation by the former head of Goldman Sachs, and then we’ll all go gambling on the strip.  This years special topics include;  How to outsource otherwise ethically required duties, maximize your income (again), and this years special attraction;  Appraising in hostile SJW environments and avoiding trigger words.