AMC's hate me because I've got access to Terra Value and call them out on their BS when I know the value should be there. I love it when they say, yeah that comp was a dump. Then I say I'm looking at the [photos ....

Mike you must really deal with crappy AMCs. My guys hit my number 99% of the time. And deliver in 4-5 days. You may need to look internal. Not outward.

who do you deal with? They all basically say it's up to the appraiser. The bigger ones are the worst. I had great luck with MyAMC when I was with supreme. Peel away a few layers and you know who owned it, but The guy running it was cool.

Momentum mostly.

Appraisers your feedback on Momentum?

I've got nothing, never dealt with them.

Why don't you guys use the Mercury Network?

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good thread. For those laymen out there not sure of some of us in the industry here is some background. When I got in mortgage in 2002 the loan originator chose his appraiser. We got most appraisers on word of mouth from others LO's or realtors. The problem was, as it always, a percentage of LO's abused this and were constantly harassing Appraisers about value. I remember my boss would absolutely go ape sheet crazy on an appraiser if he did not get the numbers he needed. My deal was if the value was in doubt, get a "look up" value. That is have the appraiser give me a range of high and low before he went on inspection and if the deal was going to die just just charge me a small fee for his time.

Well as you can imagine the appraisers hated this pressure and, sorry appraisers on the thread, their associations put a full court press to change this relationship. Well sometimes you get want you want it aint what you thought it would be. So HVCC was passed that prevented any interested party to not be able to contact the appraiser with a few exceptions such as report updated, administrative matters etc. But to be safe a LO or realtor should not contact them, especially about value.

Out of the HVCC the Appraisal Mgmt. Co. (AMC) was created. They are third party companies that are middle men. Low and behold, to get business they had to hold pricing in check and became blood sucking pain in the butts for appraisers. Cutting into their fees instead of charging more. Obviously the appraisers were/are not happy. Lenders are not happy. Clients are not happy. But it is our current system. Add all the other stuff in the thread from appraisers and you can see we are in a cluster fook that is hard to solve.

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This is a good summary. As is often the case, this resulted from a few bad apples who were involved in serious fraud in 2005-2007. A number of really bad actors took advantage of the rampant fraud in that period and ruined it for everyone else.

75 I tell folks all the time, 5% of mortgage guys during those days were "easy money" originators. That's putting it nicely. Crooks really. They caused 90% of the problems. Well they left. Went to credit repair, lead generation, something else etc.

My business is no longer easy money. In the big picture it's for the best, but the govt does stupid stuff too.!

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75 I tell folks all the time, 5% of mortgage guys during those days were "easy money" originators. That's putting it nicely. Crooks really. They caused 90% of the problems. Well they left. Went to credit repair, lead generation, something else etc.

My business is no longer easy money. In the big picture it's for the best, but the govt does stupid stuff too.!

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That is putting in nicely. I had the privilege of taking their licenses away.

75 since we are having a conversation. In 2005 or so, a new employee in my cubicle farm, deemed by owner as a "Subprime Specialist". She as going to rock our world.

I could hear here phone conversation and it was not good. Lots of "what do you need?" To builders. She brings in a guy and litterally creates paycheck stubs, W-2s, 1040s on my bosses computer, under his license, and I told him what happened.

He councils her. Not fire her. Councils her.

He did fire her later. Not for fraud, but her deals all were smoke and mirrors and they busted, of course, and she turned off her cell phone while my boss dealt with a week of calls from pissed off folks.

Yep, a lot of that went on. I had a MB walk out of his revocation hearing saying "I can steal more money with a pen that I can with a gun." He's in the pen now - a federal pen.

Lol at credit repair. If I get another email about a dang credit repair rep...

Government requiring licenses for routine work is a SCANDAL !

75% of my appraisal business is involved in litigation and the other 25% is related to long standing clients that must have quarterly updates on large holdings. I have trained three different appraisers and encouraged all of them to get multiple designations. While a lot of appraisers seem to think they are training their competition, I see it differently. I see that I am training someone that will either stay with me long term and help my business grow, or I am training a high quality competitor that will bid fees in accordance with the scope of work to be done and also a first rate business contact for the sharing of information. I've had two of the three folks move on to their own business and it has done nothing but strengthen the areas I work to have them active in the appraisal business.

That said, the residential appraising business is a tough sell in my opinion. Pumping reports out for very little money doesn't seem like a long-term path to happiness, though I have some very good friends that have built successful residential appraisal businesses and are extremely happy. I suppose it is all in what makes you happy.

My dad was (still is) in the appraisal business and began in 1976. He has always told me to abide by a few rules:

1. Never bid a job when your hungry. You take a lower fee than you should and then a good client comes along and you are too tied up with the crappy job to jump on the good one.

2. Set your prices at what you're worth and don't compromise. Lowering your prices is a heck of a lot easier than raising them.

3. Always stay honest, perform your analysis well, and let the market speak for itself. Once someone knows your opinion can be bought, you are out of the quality jobs.

Those rules have served me well and I have had a pretty successful go at it by staying true to them. I consider myself a valuation expert, not a number justification service. The value is what the market indicates it is. The clients I've been able to attract hire me for that reason and I'm sure many more on this thread are in the same boat. A&M is known to push out high quality appraisers. It sucks that we are dumped in with the rest of the cesspool but I just remind myself that every profession has their reputable people and their dogs. I hope that you young guys will stick with it and find the right niche. Our profession needs you.