Why Are Lender’s Shopping For an Appraiser?

It's getting to the point being an appraiser in Las Vegas, Nevada where I don't want to say anything to a potential client on the telephone. The questions about general market conditions always seem to become a 20 question probe, with the caller wanting to hear only information that suits their needs. Appraisers and ultimately their appraisal reports are supposed to be unbiased, so why do lenders and others ask these questions? It's plain and simple they want information from me to gauge my predisposition towards a value, a property type or an area.

If you play along with callers and answer a few of their questions you will indeed begin to reveal your general position on property values. Mention "prices falling like a rock" to a mortgage lender and you hear a click quickly after you start talking. Mention the same phrase to someone who happens to be trying to salvage their property from a bankruptcy or a divorce and you may have an immediate assignment.

The fact of the matter is that there are still quite a few individuals and finance related companies out there who are shopping for the right answers to their appraisal related questions. They may not be able to get you to tell them a value, or a range of values, but they will listen closely to anything that you have to say about the home or commercial market segment they are interested in, and then they will listen to what your competitors say when answering similar questions.

What this situations says to me as an appraiser is that we have a long way to go rebuilding the mortgage lending process in this country. If the financial system at its front lines is still asking me questions so that its' participants can direct work to the "appropriate" appraiser, then it is not working the way that I expect it to. The lending process in my mind is not a fishing expedition, either the value is there to support a loan on a specific property or it's not.

The best real estate appraisal assignments that I received are those that come from a client who has no value expectations. The worst assignment that I could take would be one where the expectations are fixed, and that particular scenario is considered to be an ethics violation by the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP).

So call me if you want to know what my opinion of value is after I complete the appraisal report and please don't call if you want to find out what I am thinking about the value of condos at the Palms or the value of land in the Southwest part of Clark County, I will tell you that information only after I have completed your assignment.