What the Future Holds
With no immediate fixes on the horizon, Stafford says appraisals are bound to be one of real estate’s most immediate, controversial issues.
“The appraisal issue is going to be one of the largest issues for the foreseeable future, and it is going to be because of an upward moving market, and how you provide current data to support a sales price when you just broke the threshold,” he says. “That’s going to be the challenge.”
But salvation, he explains, could come from a most ironic of sources. California currently features some of the strongest housing markets in the U.S.; in February’s Case-Shiller, for instance, home prices in San Francisco were up 18.9 percent year-over-year. With such radical increases, Stafford says, appraisers and agents in California are confronting the time-adjustment model head-on, and given how far ahead some of the Golden State’s markets are from the rest of the nation, there’s a good chance that California will have long ago resolved the major problems in how residences are evaluated by the time Chicago’s housing market reaches those heights.
But regardless of what specifically occurs, Sweeney says the relationship between the appraiser and the agent is a symbiotic one, and both parties must respect that fact as the market recovers.
“The agent needs the appraiser, and the appraiser needs the agent,” she says. “It’s that simple. If the agents believe that they can do their job in a snow globe, and that they don’t need the appraiser, I’m sorry, that’s not the case. The way that the industry is set up, they can’t valuate their own property; those days are long gone.
“The Realtors have to start respecting the appraiser, and the appraisers have to start respecting agents. The only way that respect can grow is if both of us do our jobs, that we do our jobs to the best of our abilities, that we do it in a professional manner, and that anything our name is associated with, that we’ve done our best to ensure that it is correct.”
Mark Zipperer
RE/MAX Edge
Chicago
773.435.1601
mzip1@yahoo.com
Jed Stafford
PHH Home Loans
Edina, Minnesota
952.844.6837
Jed.Stafford@phhonline.com
Robert Wessel
R.C. Wessel & Associates, Ltd.
La Grange
708.352.2990
rob@ameritech.net
Maureen Sweeney
Maureen Sweeney,
Real Estate Appraiser, Ltd.
Chicago
773.880.9105
maureen@maureensweeney.com
This is one of the best articles I have ever read! Extremely informative, educational, accurate and right on target! I experience all of the same frustrations and have unfortunately become an ‘expert appraisal reviewer’ due to issues I’ve experienced. Thank you! It’s reassuring to read my own analysis and beliefs in print.