John Blue Realty

Appraisers advise using local banks for home loans

Appraisers feel slowdown, too

Some drop out; lender caution is also a factor

On a recent chilly morning, Julie Malone and Carol Banton drove up to a vacant, newly constructed house off Ditto Marina Parkway ready to work.

Malone, an appraiser trainee, pulled out a camera, tape measure and clip board, the tools of her trade. For the past seven years, she has studied and conducted appraisals under a mentor - as required by state law - in order to obtain certification from the Alabama Real Estate Appraisers Board. Her mentor is Carol Banton-Hall, owner of Appraisal Services of North Alabama.

Malone first began appraising property while living in the Nashville area. She enjoys the work.

"I like seeing how people live," she said. "One day, while I was working in Tennessee, I appraised a $3 million mansion in Belle Meade in the morning, and that afternoon I was in a doublewide."

Real-estate appraisers are called upon not only when a home is sold, but when the homeowner refinances or gets divorced or a property is foreclosed. They are paid by the job and, these days, many are not getting as many jobs as they used to.

"August was my slowest month in 24 years," said Joseph "Bo" Lundy, a local appraiser and member of the state board. "Huntsville's blessed in that we haven't had many layoffs like you've seen in other communities. It's just a slowdown on turnaround time."

Also, he said, new state guidelines enacted this year require trainees to do 2,000 hours of appraisals, many of them under an approved mentor, who has also undergone additional training. Finding a qualified mentor who doesn't already have a protg can be a challenge.

"It's difficult to find a mentor because the market is slow," Banton said. "It's a one-on-one relationship."

Mark Cope, owner of Cope Appraisals, said while his client banks, including RBC and Wachovia, normally send him on five jobs each month for a mortgage refinance, they're now calling only about once a month.

"The last few months have been slower, that's for sure," Cope said. "There are fewer home sales ... we've seen a pretty good drop in our business."

Lundy said when he first entered the business, in 1984, Huntsville had just 16 appraisers.

"Nobody knew what an appraiser was," he said. In 1989, the "refinance boom" created a demand, he said, and homeowners sometimes had to wait six weeks to get their appraisal. Business has fluctuated over the years, but Madison County now has just over 100 appraisers, either certified or working toward certification, according to the state board.

Some appraisers are leaving the industry, Lundy said. Out of 1,668 appraisers registered with the state, some 200 opted not to renew their licenses this fall.

Part of the reason is the market, he said. Also, appraisers often get caught in the middle, he said, between homeowners and loan officers who want an inflated value on the home, and loan underwriters who often question the appraisal.

"They might have just been burned out more than anything else," Lundy said. "You're trying to please the underwriters, you're trying to please the originators, you're trying to please the owners."

Banton said underwriters can slow down an appraiser's work at least as much as the market itself.

"They are overanalyzing and asking for more data," she said. "They just assume that every market is declining. They make these rules for the whole country, and they shouldn't.

"That's not the case with local underwriters, or an underwriter who knows our market. If I were getting a loan, the first thing I would ask the lender is, 'Do you use local underwriters?' "