I recently appraised a manufactured home for a possible short sale. While performing my inspection, the home owner told me his story that has become all too common since the financial crisis and economic downturn. Lost jobs and mounting debt linked with a declining real estate market had brought forth another sadening statistic of an underwater mortgage. The home owner was visibly frustrated with the manufactured housing lending process or lack thereof. He stated "it would have been nice if someone told us it was so difficult to get a mortgage on one". As I wrapped up and started my journey back to office, I began thinking about a larger question. If this home owner was a "typical" buyer in the market, did he meet the definition of a reasonably informed buyer? This would likely garner several perspectives from appraisers but it seems the simple answer would be that it depends. It is possible that the majority of some buyers may not actual...

So just about every AMC has a web portal for appraisers to accept, track and upload assignments. Okay, I get it! For their convenience we accomodate their requests to use their proprietary systems. I'm sure it offers them many efficiencies but the trouble is that it offers us only more work and more headaches. I love technolgy as much as any other geek but sometimes it gets to a point where it serves little benefit. Uploading a report had developed to a 3 click process but thanks to progress, we now have to create a separate UAD compliant XML file, a separate PDF of the invoice, save each locally, launch the browser, click the portal link, login, find file, upload separated files, wait..........and finally exit. I recently had a file to upload which also required a user fee be paid prior to upload. After an error message, I contacted the client only to be told I needed to call their third party vendor of the portal software. After losing 45 minutes of my life, I called the cl...