#1
We are not an ‘appraisal-factory’ for banks and mortgage companies

Since most appraisers (more than 90%)—from the local solo operator to the big national firm—rely on banks and mortgage companies for most of their appraisal orders, these institutions naturally become their most important clients.

This is bad for you for at least two reasons:

1. Because these appraisal firms consistently get dozens of orders every month from each institutional client, your business frankly means very little to them—as a result, you can expect poor service (unreturned phone calls, missed deadlines, and an unreliable appraisal).
2. And because these appraisal firms do most of their work for ^[1] banks who knowingly sacrifice quality and accuracy for an ultra-fast turnaround at a rock-bottom price, they have no choice but to become an assembly-line-like factory producing low quality, often inaccurate appraisals.

To maintain our service and quality standards, as well as our independence, we avoid working with institutional clients such as banks and mortgage companies.

Instead, we prefer to service individual private clients like you, as well as a host of legal, financial, and tax professionals and their individual clients.

As a result, most appraisals we do are used for a variety of personal, legal, or tax-related issues, rather than mortgage financing. That’s why we have better familiarity with your needs and situation.

Also, we haven’t developed the bad habits that come from constantly prioritizing speed and cost over quality and accuracy—habits that inevitably result in low quality, unreliable appraisals.

#2
We never use trainee appraisers—all our appraisers have at least 15 years’ experience

Want to know an industry secret?

Many appraisal firms use inexperienced appraiser trainees, also known as ‘licensed appraiser assistants,’ to do your appraisal start to finish—with little or no supervision.

Upon completion, your appraisal is basically rubber-stamped with the signature of the senior appraiser you thought you hired to do the job.

Why? Because trainees work cheap—and sometimes they even work for free. This is how many appraisal firms cut costs to maximize profit, at your expense.

It’s a disturbingly common practice.

You see, trainees are supposed to be apprentices. But it takes years of oversight and hand-holding to correctly learn the trade and earn an appraisal license—most firms can’t be bothered with that.

Institutional clients like banks and mortgage companies have no problem with this practice because it enables appraisal firms to dramatically cut costs and speed up turnaround time.

As a result, banks get what they really want – cheap, fast appraisals. And as you just learned in the section above, banks don’t really care that this practice often leads to low quality, inaccurate appraisals.

But what about you?

Do you need a reliable, thoroughly-researched, accurate appraisal of your property? If so, you should avoid hiring an appraiser that primarily serves institutional clients.

We never use trainees or licensed appraiser assistants in any capacity. All our appraisers are WA State Certified and have at least 15 years’ experience.

When you work with us, you’ll have one highly skilled and experienced appraiser who works on your appraisal all the way through, from start to finish.

#3
With us, you’re a big fish in a little pond
(instead of the other way around)

If you read the points above, you now understand why we avoid ‘institutional clients’ and their high-volume appraisal needs.

Instead we prefer to work with individual clients like you who need an appraisal of just one or maybe several properties.

We believe that when you hire a company for an important job, you should expect to be treated like an important person.

We know from experience this is not the case at many appraisal firms—where ^[2] big institutional clients are doted on, while individual clients like you are pushed to the back of the line and unapologetically treated as less important.

Our clients have our office numbers, cell phone numbers and personal e-mail addresses. We make ourselves available day and night. When you call, we answer. Not a receptionist or a pushy salesman.

We offer you a unique level of access and commitment—and we can usually do so at a lower cost than big name firms, because we don’t have to charge extra to cover bloated operational costs.