Sounding Bored is my semi-regular column on the state of the appraisal profession. This week, the subpoena issued to eAppraiseIT generates some general thoughts about appraisal management companies.

New York State AG Cuomo has now added eAppraiseIT to the list. I thought it was curious that the president of eAppraiseIT was quoted saying:

It’s a very good thing, what the attorney general is doing,” Merlo said. Cuomo’s office was focused on “who’s exerting the pressure” on appraisers, he said.

As an appraisal company, we made a “business” decision not to work for appraisal management firms like eAppraiseIT because their appraisal fees were roughly half that of market levels and the turnaround requirements were 2-3 times faster than the norms. It was a “business decision” on our part. I don’t see how appraisers who work for the majority of appraisal management companies don’t need to cut all corners to make it cost effective.

When Washington Mutual closed their in-house review function last year (the last national lender to do so), they went with eAppraiseIT and Lenders Service to manage the appraisal process. Unfortunately, Washington Mutual did not refer their approved appraisers to these two AMC firms and basically cleaned house after torturing all of us that were loyal to them for five years with an appraisal ordering system that did not work (remember OPTIS?). I had heard that they were having quality problems and sure enough, some of the formal panel members got calls from both firms. We didn’t bite.

US Trust Company, who is being purchased by Bank of America was a great client of ours for years. Two years ago, UST senior management decided to dump all the appraisers they worked with to save money and hired AMCO, an appraisal management company. Many firms like us, who had been working for them for 15 years since they entered the mortgage business, were talked into working for AMCO, because our same fees and turn time requirements were mandated by UST. However, AMCO eventually ignored the mandate and stopped paying our outstanding invoices. Recently, with the previous senior managers gone, UST dumped AMCO and we were eventually able to recover nearly all our accounts receivable and were back to direct ordering from UST. AMCO seems to be out of business and someone is reportedly shopping their assets. We will see if Bank of America plans to go with credible appraisers in the markets they cover. I believe they too were burned by the appraisal management company process and reverted back to in-house ordering.

With all the focus on appraisal pressure these days, I can only hope that something is done to correct the flaws in the lending system and someone actually wants an unbiased collateral assessment. Thats the goal here and hopefully the regulatory agencies won’t lose sight of that.

Until then, I’ll have to manage.