Appraisers say pressure is nothing new

NEW YORK – Nov. 7, 2007 – Real estate appraisers all over the country defended themselves in the wake of a suit filed last week against eAppraiselT, a subsidiary of First American Corp., by New York’s attorney general, saying they had bowed to pressure to inflate prices.

Appraisers say that being badgered is, unfortunately, part of the job.

“We get pressured every single day to inflate our values,” says Dan Tosh, principal at Tosh & Associates, an appraisal firm in suburban San Francisco. “We get people telling us we’ll never work again, or they won’t pay us because we won’t play ball.”

In a nationwide survey released earlier this year, 90 percent of 1,200 appraisers say they had felt “uncomfortable pressure” to adjust property values. Mortgage brokers were named as the most common culprits, followed by real estate practitioners, consumers, lenders and appraisal management companies. The increase in pressure was dramatic compared with that found in a similar survey in 2003, when 55 percent of appraisers reported feeling pressured.

“Pressure on appraisers reaches pandemic proportions,” says David Hutton, senior editor at October Research Corp., the Ohio company that conducted the study. “The New York lawsuit ... may be just the tip of the iceberg.”

Source: The San Francisco Chronicle, Carolyn Said (11/3/2007)

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