Out of ambition or necessity

The relationship between commercial fee appraisers and chief appraisers in banks has changed dramatically over the years. There’s a lot of established relationships, but there’s considerable stress on both sides of the fence. Commercial fee appraisers feel the compression of fees. Those in appraisal departments feel significantly overworked and understaffed. Vendor management creeping in may […]

A Week of Mondays

If you talk to any chief appraiser or appraisal manager, you hear pretty much the same words. “I’m swamped.” They’re not saying, “I’m pretty busy” or “I have a pretty heavy workload.” Their metaphoric description of their workload tells a deeper story. The story might include a spike in appraisal volume, understaffed appraisal department or […]

Your appraisal dept is overworked

What can you do to improve your daily pipeline in your appraisal and credit department? Find it difficult to get out of the day-to-day grind? There’s always something that you can do to upgrade the work you’re doing and become a valued team lead or member. What good is managing your department from the front […]

2 Most Powerful Words

The most two powerful words in business productivity today are “what if?” There are other iterations of this powerful two word mantra such as “should we?” or “how about?” If these questions are asked often, it’s amazing the productivity you can obtain for your appraisal or credit department. Aspiration is defined as a hope or […]

The leadership difference for appraisers

I didn’t realize that I was managing my appraisers the wrong way for two decades. I thought I was doing the right thing, being helpful in answering all their questions. Instead, I was creating a culture of dependents. My leadership style was summarized with, “Just ask Jeff.” It’s inefficient, lacks productivity and is not scalable. […]

The best way to review appraisals

Take 5 minutes to learn: 1. What commercial reviewers get right 2. Biggest hurdle – reviewers appraising the property 3. The importance of “nailing the subject” 4. Solution-focused reviews 5. Relationship between the subject and the market