There was a really good appraisal story in the Sunday Real Estate Section this weekend by Lisa Prevost focusing on appraising high end properties whose theme is well-captured in the opening sentence:

As home sales pick up in the million-dollar-plus market, deals are being complicated by unexpectedly low appraisal values.

The higher the price strata of the market, the smaller the data set is to work with so the conventional wisdom seems to be that less data = more unreliable appraisals. However I believe the real problem is lack of market knowledge by more appraisers today as a result of May 2009’s Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC) – the lack of data at the top of the market merely exposes a pervasive problem throughout the housing market.

To the New York Times’ credit, they are the only national media outlet that has been consistently covering the appraisal topic since the credit crunch began and I appreciate it since so few really understand our challenges as well as our our roles and relationship to the parties in the home buying and selling process. Appraising gets limited coverage in the national media aside from NAR’s constantly blaming of the appraisers as preventing a housing recovery (in their clumsy way of articulating the problem, they are more right than wrong).

Here’s the recent NYT coverage:

January 27, 2013 Appraising High-End Homes
January 11, 2013 Understanding the Home Appraisal Process

October 12, 2012 Scrutiny for Home Appraisers as the Market Struggles

June 14, 2012 When the Appraisal Sinks the Deal
May 8, 2012 Accuracy of Appraisals Is Spotty, Study Says
September 16, 2011 Decoding the Wide Variations in House Appraisals

The general theme and style of coverage comes about when Realtors start seeing an increase in deals blowing up that involve the appraisal. The Prevost article indicates that higher end sales are more at risk because the market at the top (think pyramid, not as in ponzi) is smaller and therefore the data set is smaller.

This may be true but I don’t think that is the cause of the problem but rather it exposes the problem for what it really is. I contend that the problem starts with the appraisal management company (AMC) industry and how it has driven the best appraisers out of business or pushed them into different valuation emphasis besides bank appraisals by splitting the appraisal fee with the appraiser (the mortgage applicant doesn’t realize that half their appraisal fee is going to a bureaucracy).

My firm does a much smaller share of bank appraisals than our historical norm these days but it is NIRVANA and we’re not likeley to return to our old model anytime soon.

Since the bank-hired AMC relies on appraisers who will work for half the market rate and therefore need to cut corners and do little analysis to survive, they generally don’t have local market knowledge often driving from 2 to 3 hours away.

Throw very little data into the equation as well as a very non-homogonous housing stock at the luxury end of the market and voila! there is an increased frequency of blown appraisal assignments.

There is always less data at the top of the market – the general lack of expertise in bank appraisals today via the AMC process is simply exposed for its lack of reliability. Unfortunately the appraisal disfunction affects many people’s financial lives unnecessarily such as buyers, sellers and real estate agents (and good appraisers not able to work for half the market rate and cut corners on quality).

The appraisal simply is not a commodity as it is treated by the banking industry. The appraisal is a professional service so by dumbing it down through the AMC process, they have succeeded in nearly destroying the ability to create a reliable valuation benchmark on the collateral for each mortgage in order to be able to make informed decisions on their risk exposure.

3 Comments

  1. David L. Wimpelberg January 28, 2013 at 7:19 am

    This article couldn’t be truer if it wanted to be. I’ve worked in a market that contains a significant amount of high to very high value residential properties for over two decades. If you are looking for a loan, and your lender is unwise enough to use an AMC, I can assure you that neither I, nor any of my peers with similar experience, will be appraising your property. Professional don’t work for peanuts.

    We’ve simply moved on. There is plenty of appraisal work in the area that pays appropriately: Estate planning, gifting, etc. But we’re not suddenly going to do an appraisal for half the going rate because some AMC asks us to…and that is without consideration of the fact that the AMCs also are far more demanding.

  2. […] “Broken Appraisal: Lack of Market Knowledge Overpowers Lack of Data,” by Jonathan Miller. January 27, 2013. “Homebuilding activity will likely remain the strongest growing component of the economy in 2013,” said Keith Hembre, chief economist of Nuveen Asset Management. “After several years of excess supply, demand and supply conditions are now in much better balance.” […]

  3. Edd Gillespie March 15, 2013 at 12:54 pm

    Johnathan,

    I seem to building a career appraising real estate that is “complex,” and you’ve used a term that I’m not sure I fuly understand particularly when and where data is always slim pickins.

    What is “market knowledge” and how does an appraiser find it where there is always insufficient data to satisfy a Fannie Mae form appraisal and most likely appraisal regulatory panels?

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