What Has Been Seen…

I’ve worked in real estate for several years during the boom as a side hobby. I was introduced to some of the kindest and most sincere people I’ve ever met in addition to the kind of filth that you’d imagine would occupy the bottom of an industrial septic tank. An old coworker sent me a link to a post on a forum where mortgage brokers hang out and complain about the daily struggles in life. While what I saw was nothing new, it reminded me of who was really behind the current economy and housing bubble.

Yes, predatory lending and unqualified home buyers were to blame. But at the root of everything, stood the middleman who brokered the deal and was paid for his “troubles”.

Here is what one broker (who goes by “HMDApproved”) had to say about the appraiser he liked to use, “Fat Slob Rob The Dirtbag”:

I must say, every appraiser in this part of town is a money hungry, bottom feeding, low life swindler that would charge their own mothers for an appraisal.

I had an incident where I told the appraiser (his name is “Fat Slob Rob”), that the only way the loan would work is if the house was worth $400k, I specifically told him to comp it out and let me know BEFORE he went to do it. This was a rate/term refi and the borrower was strapped for money and could not afford to pay $475.00 for an FHA appraisal if the refi would not go through.

Fat Slob Rob said that $400k was no problem, he had plenty of comps and to put him in touch with the borrower to schedule. Fat Slob Rob did the appraisal and charged the lady $475.00 at the door in cash. He took 5 days to send me the appraisal and when I got it, he appraised the house at $365k. When I asked him why he did that he said that what I asked him to do was illegal and he had to do the actual appraisal to get a “real value”. He did this knowing that the loan wouldnt work.

Am I wrong for thinking this guy is scum or was I asking him to commit a crime???

I’ve also worked as a director for a company who arranged appraisals and I can tell you that this sort of mentality is not unheard of. Our people on the phone were routinely informed that if a certain value would not (or could not) be met, they would not pay for the service. The laws for real estate appraisal in Arizona dictate that there’s no way to truly give an indication as to where the value will be found. Until the appraiser sees the property and conducts his research, there’s no way to absolutely say, without risking their appraisal license, that a property will appraise for a certain value.

As a result, real estate appraisers are left doing a careful dance in order to obtain work while trying not to alienate their clients and customers.

Now, I agree that it sounds like “Fat Slob Rob” was out to collect a check regardless. In this case, the victim is the borrower who’s out almost 500 bucks.

However, that mortgage broker reminded me of my time in that office and the types of conversations I heard. The complains from agents and brokers about appraisers who wouldn’t play ball and instead stuck by the letter of the law. It also reminded me of the appraisers who were just in it for the money (and there was plenty of money to be made), who would appraise the property at whatever price was needed to get things done.

As prices continued to inflate and inflate, $200,000 homes were being appraised for half a million dollars or more. After the mortgage broker, appraisers, and agents were long gone, there was a homeowner caught up in the whirlwind of paper, who was left holding the monthly payment on the loan they probably couldn’t afford after all.

Thankfully, it seems some of the brokers on that forum disagreed and called the original poster out:

When you tell an appraiser that they will only get the assignment if they will come in at your “needed” value you have just committed a crime.

Fat Slob Rob=Liar

HMDApproved=Fraudulator

You tied the possibility of the ordered appraisal to a stated value of opinion by a non-licensed person (yourself).

Basically, you performed the appraisal yourself when you set a number of “at least 400,000″ or the order would be canceled.

That is how you wrote it up and that is illegal.

Thank you Darkstar and Assasin for getting it and speaking up.

I do not condone what this Rob person did. I imagine he got tired of dealing with unprofessional and unethical people like the OP so he decided to impose some sort of justice. Doesn’t make it right though.

However, HMDApproved your illegalities and fraudulations are all over the internet now for the world to see. How does it feel?

News flash. Appraisers are not on here to get business. If you choose to do business the way you are then you have to deal with the people you get to work with you.

I am not begging for work either and I do not do ANY comp checks period.

Let the process work the way it is supposed to. You let the borrower know that it depends on how the appraisal comes in whether or not they get their loan. Don’t sell them on a value. Make the borrower pay for the appraisal, let them know what you have to offer, but that it depends on the actual appraisal of their house. You don’t need to know ahead of time what someone threw together in five minutes and then base your whole deal on that number. It isn’t supposed to work the way you are doing it. Sell yourself and your service. The borrowers have to know that there is a cost for doing a loan. They also have to understand that they have to have an appraisal done to find out that value. I am so tired of hearing “oh, we don’t want to waste the homeowners money”. The homeowner has to understand how the process is supposed to work. People need to stop thinking that they can get a free ride on everything.

And my personal favorite which seems to sum things up rather nicely and put them into the proper context:

One last thing an Appraiser makes between $300 and $400 on a deal, a broker makes between $3,000 and $10,000. I cant see how the appraiser is a bottom feeding slob.

This is exactly the kind of crap that helped inflate the bubble to unsustainable levels.

What’s your favorite reply from the thread?

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008  |  Visited 958 times  | 

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