The Peanut Gallery Strikes Again

If you want an idea of what HVCC has done to the appraisal industry just take a look at New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina blew through. The sad part is that HVCC was totally preventable and can be reversed if enough people just speak up.

The problem is that when people are “speaking up” they are so misinformed that they almost cause more damage than they do good. Take the article recently posted at SFGate (website for the San Francisco Chronicle) titled, “Appraisers give home-valuation reform low marks”

Under the reforms, when a home is sold, lenders must arrange an appraisal through middlemen called appraisal management companies, which hire the appraisers.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/21/MNJJ1C3DIM.DTL#ixzz0gPk0vPHP

Lenders are NOT required to use AMCs (Appraisal Management Companies) but the AMCs sure want you to think they do, don’t they?

Reading through the comments following that article is enough to make any decent appraiser’s blood pressure rise.

“They don’t want to put the time and effort into doing a good job (probably because they are mad because of getting ripped off by the Appraisal Management Companies).
Many appraisers are probably poor people who love to hurt those who are better off than them. How sad.”

While many comments seemed to be accurately focused more than a few contained sentiment like that quoted above. It amazes me how many people want to use appraisers as the scapegoat for the great bubble burst (and the boom) when appraisers are some of the FEW people in the mortgage process who don’t make commissions off the transaction.

Equally as amazing are the people who insist that appraisers are somehow beholden to protect the lender’s interest. It says a lot about our society when you have people who would rather skewer small business owners rather than the big business corporations who have proven time and time again that they will increase their profit margin through any means necessary.