Home buying thread

Oblio said:

Oh I don't take it personally, if I took it personally I wouldn't last long in the business.

Believe it or not #2 is the exact reason I left my first mentor and went to my second one. My first mentor had been in the business for 30 years and everything he did was by "feel" based on his "experience." I hated it, I learned nothing from him because I did not have his 30 years to understand his "feel" on an adjustment. Anyway, fast forward to my second mentor who taught me a very repeatable formulaic method from which I could interpret the market and derive market based adjustments. Sadly what I have come to realize over the years is that the least skilled appraisers are often the ones the ones that have been in it for 20+ years. After 2008 the industry really changed a lot more was expected of appraisers, many that had been in for years did not bother to educate themselves or try new techniques, they just kept doing what they always did because they knew better. Sadly those same people are training a lot of the next gen and so the cycle will repeat itself.

As far as #3 goes the only time I get "real time" feed back is when my interpretation of the market leads me to an opinion of value that is less than the agreed upon contract price. As much as it is a pain in the ass to have to do the extra work, these instances are actually a great exercises and truly test to the methodology I was taught. Let me say this, I am not infallible, I am capable of making an error that could skew my analysis. I am capable of missing that one comp that would have supported the contract value which is why there is a process for these disagreements. The process is called "A Request for Reconsideration of Value" and it typically comes in the form of providing me with comparables that the Realtors believe support their contract price. I will analyze these comps to see why I missed them or chose to not use them. If I missed them it is usually because their data was input incorrectly into the MLS (garbage in garbage out). Sometimes it is because the Realtor is using comps that are outside the neighborhood I could right paragraphs on this, but I will save your eyes and say location, location, location. So anyway once I get the new comps I plug them into the grid and run the same formulaic repeatable process to see if it actually supports the value. I have only changed my value one time and it was because the of the example I gave a above, where a home was mismarked in the MLS as a Condo when it was actually a TownHome, I still could not support the contract price but it did raise my opinion value. IMHO a good and competent appraiser does not want to be right, they want the data and analysis to be right so they can provide a competent supported product. I am not saying the method I use is the only way to do things, there is more than one to skin a cat. My method is repeatable and formulaic, not just by "feel."

And to your last point about "number hitters" it takes down turns to weed them out. When shit hits the fan and banks require appraisals with multiple values the "number hitters" will either put in the work and gain the knowledge they need to survive or they won't and they will fail which can take many forms.

Oh, regarding #1. I am only competent in the markets I cover where I have geographical competency. So I cannot really speak to some suburban neighborhood outside of Chicago or Atlanta etc.. However, the method I was taught would work in any market (environment). Hope that makes sense.


It all makes so much sense now, you are a Realtor and I have no doubt a really successful one. To be clear though, you are not an expert in residential appraising and it was obvious based on your statements. By no means am I saying the methodology I apply is beyond you, you are a smart dude and I think you would pick it up pretty quickly. I would be happy to share the method that I was taught if you ever wanted to jump on discord.

Lastly, I will just say this about Appraisers in general. I have been an Appraiser for less than a decade and my prior 20 years was mostly in banking and finance with an emphasis on mortgage origination (I did have 5-6 years doing commercial leasing). I got into this profession for a couple of reasons, believe it or not job security was at the top of the list. When I started most appraisers in my area are old and near retirement and many are now retired. Also, as I eluded to before they do not want to learn new tricks. There is a reason my fees are significantly higher than most my peers, there is a reason I seldom get the easy cookie cutter assignments, there is a reason local banks send me a county or two away for double the fee they would pay an appraiser in that county. That reason is competency. I am not even claiming to be an expert, but I am claiming to be competent. I agree with you guys there are a lot of bad appraisers out there, and hopefully one positive that comes from this recession is we will trim the fat.

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