Appraisal Ace Blog

The link below will take you to the GovTrack website for the following bill.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-3837

This bill is another one of those catch all reactions to the current mortgage crisis that may be well meaning, or just political grandstanding but has some dangerous components including language in Section 203k which could lead to all appraisers having to be MAI or SRA at some point. Granted MAI or SRA designation may be desirable, but the idea of possibly mandating such designation undermines the present federal and state regulation of appraisers.

In a Continuing Education class Tuesday night, the topic presented by an Appraisal Institute Instructor was "Concessions" in sales contracts and how to deal with them when making adjustments to the comparable sales. Most of what I heard was nonspecific and the MAI instructor's main words of direction were "It depends", "Not necessarily" and "Do the research and the decision is the appraiser's based on the findings."

I've read a lot on declining markets. If you have been following the market, you can see that Sacramento is a declining market. Citi and Wells both define it as such. Does that mean that the declining market box should be automatically checked for any Sacramento area appraisal? Once again, it depends, not necessarily and do the research...

In preparing an appraisal report I research both concessions and the declining market issue when evaluating a property and do not rely on a standardized rule of thumb. Above all, the report must accurately reflect current conditions as they affect the value of the subject.