AUTHOR: Ken Verrett: The author is the owner of Acorn Appraisal Associates, a 24 year old firm offering a wide range of quality appraisal services to the Financial and Business Communities.
This series has generated much good comment and views from various readers. Thanks to all for taking the time to add to the discussion!
We've tried to focus on several basic points in this series...points which not everyone agrees with, but which I believe are quite crucial to our understanding of where the Appraisal Profession is today, and what fundamental changes should be considered to ensure it's viability for the future.
The Fundamentals
- The Appraisal Profession is a vital part of the Loan Origination Market - The existence of an Appraisal on each property adds confidence and security to the underlying asset which therefore extends to packages of loans sold in the market.
- The Professional Appraiser is the single unbiased supporter of the loan transaction and that position aides in the confidence created in the Collatorized Mortgage Obligations (CMO) that are offered to the global market.
- Appraisal Management Companies (AMCs) have been created to facilitate the interaction between the lender and the appraiser to achieve transactional efficiencies vital to current and future markets.
- The AMC market is composed of a few large firms that control 80 percent of the appraisal demand in the USA, and many smaller firms that compete for the remaining business.
- The large AMCs that control 80 percent of the market function as an Oligopoly which results in inordinate power over the market.
- The Oligopoly has created a two tiered pricing structure for appraisal products services which serve their short term purposes, but which fundamentally damage the working of a competitive market.
- The resulting problem is not with the existence of Appraisal Management Companies, but with the business model of the top firms which are able to distort the market by virtue of their Oligopoly status.
Let's be very clear. The result is the imposition of a two tiered pricing market for appraisal services; the 'one off' market, and the AMC market. We've described that stark contrast earlier parts of this series and the impact on the Appraisal Profession is very significant.
There is one last fundamental part of the AMC business model that affects the Appraisal Profession adversely and should be addressed whenever the opportunity for change presents itself. That fundamental is recognition of the role of the Appraisal Business as a separate reality, apart and distinct from the Appraiser. That's the subject of today's post.
The Appraisal Business Versus the Appraisal Professional
We've discussed previously the changing market...moving from local to regional to national to global. As the market for securitized loans has evolved, the lenders have moved from being the holder of those loans to the originator and seller role. The lenders are now selling the loans to investors who ultimately buy the loan packages as a simple investment...much like a bond.
The lender/originator is now more of a retailer; using their retail outlets to originate loans, packaging them into like groups, then offering those packages to the market. When the package is sold the lender then uses the proceeds to originate more loans which are in turn sold.
As that market evolved new businesses evolved to serve that changing market: the AMCs, Mortgage Servicing Companies, Automated Valuation Companies, the Wall Street "Bankers" who sold the packaged loans, even Appraisal Businesses that employ a number of appraisers. Each of these business models evolved to serve the needs of a changing market.
It is a long standing tradition that users of appraisal services engage the appraiser directly for the appraisal. That arrangement was quite efficient when local lenders made local loans to local borrowers and a local, lone appraiser was engaged to provide the appraisal. For some appraisers, that model still best characterizes the way they do business: they are sole entrepreneurs working alone, perhaps with an clerical assistant.
However, as the market has evolved and grown the efficiencies required that spawned the specialization of efforts such as AMCs has also required response by appraisers who wish to serve the mortgage loan origination market. The Appraisal Business Model employing several appraisers has evolved to meet that need.
The majority of appraisal businesses now are multi appraiser firms. I did a survey of 174 appraisal businesses last year. Sixty percent of those firms employed multiple appraisers, with the average employing three full time appraisers. Generally, the more appraisers employed the more efficiency the appraisal business achieved.
The efficiencies that result are significant. In the survey I conducted, the Appraisal Business that employed five appraisers was on average four times more productive than the single appraiser business as measured by the average monthly output per appraiser.
The typical multi appraiser business is owned by one or more appraisers. They invest in offices, hardware, software, and data bases that are needed to produce appraisal products. They employ administrative staff to provide clerical and administrative support services to an appraiser staff who are W2 employees, not independent contractors. The appraisal business provides marketing, training, customer service and quality control to the lender/clients. The appraisal business guarantees quality, service times, and regulatory standards for each assignment they accept.
If my survey is representative of the market today (and I believe that it is) sixty percent of the appraisal firms employ multiple appraisers, and because they are much more productive, they produce the vast majority of loan origination appraisals completed by appraisers each year. In my survey, over eighty percent of the appraisals delivered were completed by multi appraiser firms.
That should not be a surprise. The evolving mortgage origination market requires shorter response times, more efficient participants, all while maintaining quality standards. The multi appraiser business model is a response to those demands, just as is the Appraisal Management Company.
Yet the process of ordering appraisals is often according to the old standard, when sole proprietors were the dominant appraiser business model. That is, some lender/clients insist on specifying the appraiser to assign the order to, rather than assigning it to the appraisal firm.
That old standard works for the sole proprietor, but it doesn't work as well for the multi appraiser firm. The multi appraiser firm guarantees the quality and performance of their employees. The advantages they provide to their clients are dependable service, consistent turn times, consistent service. They achieve that by taking advantage of the efficiencies that the larger business model provides.
One of those advantages is the ability to deploy the firm's resources in the most efficient way possible. Assigning appraisal orders to the staff as appropriate results in significant efficiencies. Studies we've done in our own firm suggest that we achieve a 30 percent increase in field efficiency by assigning each appraisal to the employee who can best meet the performance required.
Many, even most, clients recognize that reality. They assign the appraisal to the Appraisal Business and allow the firm to deploy their resources in the most efficient way to meet the client's needs.
The Oligopoly does not. The top AMCs require that they assign appraisals directly to the employees of the appraisal firm, bypassing the ability of the multi appraiser business to control and allocate their resources in the most efficient manner.
The result is that the Oligopoly creates a market in which they force the appraisers to accept a 30-40 percent lower fee for the appraisals they order, and they refuse to allow the appraisal business to deploy their resources in the most efficient and profitable way, reducing field research efficiency by 30 percent in multi appraiser firms operating in large metropolitan markets.
Since the vast majority of The Ologoply's appraisals are delivered by multi appraiser businesses, the effect is to threaten the long run health of the entire Appraisal Profession.
What industry or profession could remain healthy when their market is dominated by an unregulated Oligopoly that forces the market to accept price discounts in the form of kickbacks equal to 30-40 percent of the competitive one off price for the product, and in addition bypasses the major efficiencies created by those businesses to deliver service to their clients?
If we all can accept that a healthy local, regional, national and global market place for mortgage originations depends in part on a healthy Appraisal Profession, isn't it reasonable to demand that the Oligopoly make simple changes to their business model which cause that health to be threatened?
Isn't that in part what HUD/FHA recognized when they attempted to adopt rules which would force AMCs to unbundle their pricing, pay appraisers for their services equal to the "one off" standard fee which prevails in each market?
Simple Changes For the Betterment Of All
I don't consider AMCs to be evil. I consider them to be a positive development in the evolution of the global market for first and second loan originations. My firm's personal, in depth, and long term experience with AMCs is that they are generally well run, efficient, even pleasant to deal with. I recognize that they provide a very needed service to the large national lenders and mortgage originators and I welcome them in the industry.
The two simple changes to the business model of the Ologopoly members that I propose would change the market for the betterment of all, including the lenders and orginators they serve.
- First, unbundle fees they charge for their services; bill the lender for the outsourcing services, and the appraiser for the efficiencies they provide to appraisal firms who work with them. Pay the true market rate for the appraisals they order, without requiring the haircut, the kick back, that is deemed illegal in other markets.
- Second, contract appraisal services with Appraisal Firms, and allow the Appraisal Firm to assign the appraisal to appraisers in their employ who are best qualified to deliver that particular service at that particular moment.
Those two changes would correct the injustices perpetuated over the last two decades, restore the health of the Appraisal Profession, and improve the overall business of the first and second mortgage loan origination markets, markets which have grown to be a significant engine of prosperity for local, regional, national and global economies.
Isn't that in everyone's best interests?
AUTHOR: Ken Verrett: The author is the owner of Acorn Appraisal Associates, a 24 year old firm offering a wide range of quality appraisal services to the Financial and Business Communities.
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