Commentary

There was a letter to the editor in Sunday's Merc from a reader in San Leandro (strange that he reads a San Jose newspaper). He disagreed with an editorial that said that the new appraisal requirements were hurting the real estate market, and blamed the housing meltdown, at least in part, on the appraisal process. Of course
there were inflated appraisals done by unscrupulous lenders, just as buyers were approved who should never have qualified for loans, but that situation does not exist today. In fact, banks are more conservative than they have ever been, now that the abuses of the meltdown have come to light.
What he doesn't seem to realize is that extremely low appraisals brought in by out-of-area appraisers are not a "healthy correction in the market" but a detriment to an already depressed market. Honest local appraisers must base value of properties on recent sales (less than 3 months old.) If an appraisal comes in too low because the appraiser is unfamiliar with the area, a potential sale may not happen, and both the buyer and seller are hurt. He calls the complaints about inexperienced appraisers "a ruse by real estate agents unhappy with reforms in the market."
I am one Realtor who is in favor of reforms, but only those that make some kind of sense, and charging buyers twice as much for an off-the-wall appraisal by someone from the central valley or Sacramento doesn't make any sense at all.