I believe most appraisers see reviewers as a troublesome addition to their world, like tax returns and traffic cops. On the whole, appraisers tend to be fairly polite and professional, all raised to be law-abiding folks. And so they put up with review appraisers, like they put up with hailstorms and TSA scans.

I fully admit there are a fair number of incompetent, surly, officious and/or contemptuous folks making their living today as reviewers. The competency issues can be resolved, to a good degree, by credentialing. The Appraisal Institute has a very good review designation program that does just that. Unfortunately, not all banks and AMCs are going to be aware of this credentialing. And many that learn of it will not pay more for reviewers with this added expertise.

For all its benefit, though, credentialing does not address personality issues. We all know that not everyone is equipped to become an appraiser. But most appraisers seem to think that they easily transfer to review appraising if they are so inclined. As a long-time reviewer, I maintain this is far from the case.

Not only is appraisal competency a must for reviewers, but personality/character is even more important than it is for appraisers. And the most crucial personality trait for a review appraiser is reasonableness. When I say reasonableness, I mean someone who can be reasoned with; someone who is willing to accept the limits of their knowledge (when they have not seen the property or the comparables), willing to test the argument of others without interjecting my-way-or-the-highway bias into that process. The details are important only inasmuch as they detract from or add to the whole; the reasonable do not get distracted with a snipe hunt.

For all those "Don't Tread on Me" appraisers out there whose bad experiences have galvanized them to clamor for the removal of all review appraisers, I can provide 25 years of reasons why reviewers are crucial in the banking world. A ready example can be found in a report I recently reviewed. The property (office warehouse) was appraised in the income approach with triple net rent, whereby triple net means the tenant pays for utilities and reimburses the landlord for taxes, insurance, and CAM. Yet the only expense deducted was a management fee. When I called the appraiser to ask about the unreimbursed fixed expenses (taxes and insurance) during the 10% vacancy period, I was told he had heard of that method but had never deducted fixed expenses during vacancy in the past and none of his clients had ever questioned him on it.

Just days later, I talked to another appraiser about the same issue on another office warehouse. This second appraiser was well versed with the process of deducting fixed expenses for triple net leases during times of vacancy, and had done so in the past. But on several occasions recently he had been told to eliminate these deductions by some less than qualified reviewers who could not fathom the concept at all. This appraiser not only complied at that point, but continued to do so going forward in hopes of forestalling similar phone calls. That is until he talked to me, who requested he put back in the required deductions. I can certainly see that he was between a rock and a hard place. A knowledgeable reviewer would expect these expenses to be deducted, but an unknowledgeable reviewer may be inclined to request the opposite.

What, you might ask, is the answer when faced with such a divergence of reviewer competency or, even worse, personality quirks? Some appraisers may calculate loss in income from these "work stoppages" and increase their fees. Others may view them as the cost of doing business in the appraisal industry today. But the really wise appraisers will be on the look-out for what they can learn and how they can grow as appraisers and as mature human beings. Those are the appraisers who will not just get by, but thrive, even when the day is interrupted by a call from one of those pesky reviewers.