The Power of Intention

After getting off the phone with an appraiser in TN on Friday morning, and checking my emails, I noticed in the background that Dr. Wayne Dyer was on PBS with his Power of Intention program. I like Dr. Dyer, and have listened to many of his books on tape or CD. Part about what I love are his poignant stories. Stories about people doing the right thing. I just love good stories with a good moral.

After listening to him it dawned on me that I know if we can have the courage to embrace the concept of the Power of Intention, we will attract good things in our life, will end up creating good will.  Dr. Dyer taught me the difference between a Belief and a Knowing.

Starting an appraisal assignment with a predetermined value, whether it is $25,000 or $25,000,000; is averse to the Intent of the License Law and to USPAP.  It is not a good Intent. This is a bad habit that can result in misleading results.  It can also result in liabilities, criminal and civil. We cannot certify we are neutral and objective; when we start the assignment with a bias toward a predetermined value. Yet many in our field make a living doing just that.

For those who may be struggling with this issue, and absent any structural support for the appraiser who wants to be ethical and honest, I offer some things that might be helpful.

  What I found that helps me a lot is listening to Books on Tape, or CD's.  I have little time to read, except on vacation, and then I mostly paint. Being dyslexic, I find reading harder than listening. It is troublesome at times. Like trying to remember when to multiply or divide, order of operations, etc..

The Power of Intention is a good title, well covered. Some other things that are worth reading or listening to, based on my experience, include: Click below to read on . . .

1. Wear Clean Underwear
2. Forces of Character
3. The Way of the Wizard
4. Your Sacred Self
5. Wisdom of the Ages
6. All I need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarden
7. The Road Less Traveled
8. Think and Grow Rich
9. Anatomy of Success
10. A Promise is a Promise
11. Applying Wisdom of Ages
12. Business Writing
13. Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life
14. Choosing your Own Greatness
15. Communicating for Results
16. Cultivating an Unshakable Character

There are many more titles to choose from, available on-line for sale or rent, or at most bookstores.

If you are an office owner with people working for you and looking to attract more high quality staff, and build your business, here are a few titles for you:

1. Empowering Other's to Peak Performance
2. Essence of Success
3. Excellence in Leadership
4. Excellent Decision Making
5. Advanced Consultative Selling
6. Balancing Work and Family
7. Building Winning Teams
8. Do Right! The Plan
9. Getting Business to Come to You

There are over 1500 different titles at this web site: http://www.achievementlibrary.com/. Or try www.audioeditions.com.

I have been using them since about 1984. I know they have helped me. I used to lend out my library of tapes and CD's to other appraisers, but over the years, less than half have come back to me. Now, I point the way. There are many sources on-line as well as stores that sell "Books on Tape" or "Audio Books" that cover a wide range of subjects, including College Courses. You can actually complete a degree, using them for the knowledge, in conjunction with a CLEP Exam for the credits.

My best friend and I share the costs of a 12-month program and take turns listening to CD's as we drive or work. Find a friend who would like to start on a path of personal development and improvement and sign up for a 12-month program.

You will have to learn to pick and choose your author. Some I do not like at all, don't even like their voice (Zig Zigler) and some who are just about Sales stuff. Others I find terrific and have found to be helpful in many ways.

At different junctures I have been faced with new horizons and faced with making presentations to new and different audiences. I attribute much of the successes I have had in this area to many of the audio books I have listened too over the years.  Give yourself the gift of an audio adventure. Start by buying a set of tapes at your local bookstore from the list, or go on line and see 1,500 titles.

Many people in the various fields of Sales will use this type of resource to help them. There is no reason Appraisers can't also use positive reinforcement, not that we take the same kind of rejection that Salesmen do. Not in the past anyway, maybe more so in the future.

The most important thing to me in looking at hiring or bringing someone into an association with us, is their Character. I wish there were a Litmus test we could give to determine if someone has good Character.

For this reason, it is almost impossible to consider anyone who has been doing residential loan production appraisals.  Most have been trained to start with a Price and search for Sales that will make it work. They have not been trained how to appraise, but how to remove Red Flags from appraisals. They have been Conditioned to Anchor on a Price that will make the deal work. It takes us about 3-years to break this habit.

Take a look at the Appraisal Assistant Hiring Matrix Download AppraiserAssistantHiringMatrix12-05.xls , and you will see we give more points for a good Credit Score, than we do for a License or Residential Experience.

Taking assignments with a Predetermined Value violates USPAP and the very reason we were licensed.  Once an appraiser has been Conditioned to Anchor on Price, they are essentially ruined as a real appraiser. The bias toward a Predetermined Value shows up in a Forensic Review. Forensic Reviews are done when litigation starts and are much more in depth and the normal review.

When I put on the first Real Estate Fraud seminar in September of 1999, there was a lawyer in the audience, who contacted me the next day and gave me an assignment.

We worked on that assignment for five years. It involved CTX Mortgage, owned by Centex Homes. All we did was Forensic Reviews. All the cases involved appraisers being sued. I kept thinking I would be deposed or go to trial. One after one, they settled the cases, dozens of them. Never once was I deposed or did I have to go to court and testify. Why, because none of the appraisals were defensible. None. Oh, and the appraisers have the same insurance carrier that we do.

Will our premiums be going up because others are inflating values?

We point we are at is that we need to find more people in order to grow. I get tired of turning work down or trying to refer it away because we do not have enough people we can trust, people with true skills.

Don't get me wrong, I am actively looking. We have only been able to find about one per year. At about 3-years, our people start getting job offers and face a decision to stay or leave. By 5-years, we hope all will have become Professional Appraisers in terms of their education and credentials.  Everyone who affiliates with us, must be willing to get on a Professional Path. We are non-denominational, AI, ASA, IRWA, NIFA re all good. We just aren't too keen on the ASSO's, or other groups that are mail-order credentials.

The last person we hired, has no license, has never taken an appraisal course, has only read four books on real estate I gave her and tested her on.  She read Real Estate Principles, Real Estate Law, Real Estate Appraisal, and USPAP.  Her degree is in Cartography, but she never worked. She married and raised five children. She has common sense, and is sharp. She has good MS Office skills, even created her own web-page in Front Page, www.dolemieux.com. She is a artist in the making. We are opening a Gallery in the office for her and two other artists.

She has progressed marvelously. We hired her because of her Character. She improves her skills with each new assignment. The one she handed in yesterday was the valuation of an Easement. It was her 9th appraisal. She had no problems with the concepts, absorbed and followed instructions and developed a credible report.

USPAP seemed like common sense to her. And that is a good thing.  The last time I took the AI two day course, I saw a member there. He was one of the two appraisers who had been caught appraising a Flip transaction.  I had called him when I reviewed it and interviewed him and realized he did not understand what had happened. There is a whole story in just his answers. Anyway, my presumption was that he was there because the AI had given him a reprimand and secondary orders to retake USPAP.

I said hello to him at the break, he looked nervous. I said "whats wrong", and replied, "I really need to pass this class this time, but I just don't get it". My response was that is just common sense. He said "no it's not, I just don't get it and don't know how to study for it". I think his Conditioning as a loan production appraiser had ruined him.  Later I saw that he was publicly censured and reprimanded and had to pay a $2,000 fine. I have never seen him at an appraisal meeting again.

We always give new hires Land Appraisal assignments over any other product. It is my firm belief that you can't value improved property until you learn how to value land. Land Value and Land Adjustments are key to knowing understanding the adjustment process. Time, Location, Lot Size and Utility or Views, etc.  All show up more graphically in vacant land than in improved sales.

After a year or so of working on Land appraisals doing research, putting spread sheets together and learning, we will introduce the Assistant to Housing issues.

This may include gaining an understanding of the Housing Stock in a given city or project, including Inventory, Sales Volumes, Sales Data Tiers (current, historic, pending, listed, expired, etc). Once a person can understand and articulate the product in terms of the macro situation in a given sub-market or city, then they are introduced to micro factors involving Location.  Once the visible and invisible, physical and political boundaries are learned in terms of how the effect values, then, the Assistant is ready to start working on House appraisals.

It is our Intent to develop Assistants that are the best they can be, based on all we can teach, lead, guide and show them. This is an investment that has an underlying purpose. 

The appraiser from TN who called on Friday, was someone we helped back in September. His specialty is Medical related assignments all around the Country. He has a client who requires a Confidentiality Agreement before an appraiser can be engaged or work on the assignment. He was recommended to us by another appraiser.

The point is, through networking, he came to us out of Trust. He needs local knowledge, field work, valuation analysis and consultation. There is no fee or price pressure, just billable hours at a professional rate. He came to me first because a fellow student in my Masters program at St. Thomas in MN, was from TN. This was someone with whom I have had several referrals, and many cogent conversations about life and this business, including ethics and liabilities.

My friend was the one who, in 1999 introduced the concept of Limiting Liability through the us of Restricted Reports. We do a lot of them.

Thanks to the change in Scope of Work, we are negotiating with clients about what they want, what they really need. We are happy to do as little or as much in terms of research, due diligence, analysis and writing. All we want to do is be paid for our time.

It is my Intention to continue on the same path that we have set, which is truly the high ground in the world of appraisal. As we come to the end of this year and the holiday season, I am thinking about how to attract the right person to join us on our journey toward professionalism.

If anyone knows someone in my Region, the Inland Empire who has the characteristics we are looking for, put them in contact with us. Attached is the Appraisal Assistant Hiring Matrix so you can share it with them. We consider anyone with a score of 400 or more to be a candidate. Others may use this as a guide and put together the education and computer or keyboarding skills necessary to be eligible.

I'd rather hire a person of good character that has taken four real estate courses at a Junior College, or the AI, than anyone with Prep School course and a license.

It is my intent to associate with people of good character who want to become a professional appraiser. We would like to hire four people each year in the next five years. We want people who would be potential partners, not just employee's. Some of the people we hire will be inexperienced, others will have been doing residential work, but lost their business because they had too narrow of a client base and held on to their Ethics.

If Wayne Dyer is correct, then the Power of Intention will be revealed over time, for each of us, each and every one of us.  I know the course we have set is not easy nor fast.

I Know there is an onslaught ahead for the residential appraiser and wish there was something that could be done. But there is not. We are looking at 3-5 years of hard times. Hard if we do not cave in over value of both kinds.

We each can take the time to assess where we are at and where we want to be 3-5 years from now. The future will not be the same as the past. If we do nothing, it could be miserable. Using Goal Setting and Planning techniques, along with new skills, will help many change and upgrade their client bases.

Happy Holidays to all and say a meditation or prayer in our direction.  We know we have set lofty goals, that few would care to aspire to, but do not care if we fail. The journey itself will be an adventure and I will not be alone.

If we each accomplish half of our goals, we will have succeeded. If we have no goals, we will be like a ship headed into a perfect storm with no power and no rudder.

Each of us is headed into the storm this market cycle holds, some with out tools or implements to help them survive, not even a compass.  Plan where you want to be 3-5 years from now, or you will not be there for sure, you might be downstream, or on the rocks.

PS: I don't recommend Algebra or Income Capitalization audio books in the car. Or Stress or Relaxation ones either. Different sets of issues, both bad when driving.