Appraisal Articles

We can only hope that this year will be better than last year. You don’t want to say that it could not possibly be worse, because karma like that is not something to mess with.

Can You Believe It?

And it has certainly been a memorable decade, from the highs of the refinance bubble of 2003 to the abysmal lows of the last year to now… We can now say in retrospect that it was a bubble, because we are on the back side of it. But back then it seemed like the orders would never end. Who would have predicted that one day they would end? Unfortunately I think that day has already come for some appraisers.

When HVCC took effect May 1st, 2009, no one, least of all me, could have predicted that AMCs would virtually engulf the entire appraisal industry. However, this is what has happened. Whether an intended consequence or not, AMCs own the lion’s share of the appraisal business today and I am not sure that we can reverse this fact. Even for instance, if HVCC ended tomorrow, I do not believe that banks would revert to the pre-HVCC condition of ordering appraisals themselves. It is too far gone for that...

So what do we do about it? We need to regulate AMCs, period. These AMCs are not going to go away, so if we are going to have to deal with them, there should at least be a level playing field.

I don’t think HR716, poised to go before the House of Reps in NC, is a panacea; it will not fix everything. But it will help.

For some appraisers who have already lost their business it will be too late, but for those of us still doing appraisals it may be just enough to keep the ‘independent appraiser’ alive…

Comments? Email me.