Mary Cummins, Real Estate Appraiser, Real Estate Appraisal, Los Angeles, California, Mary Cummins.

Mary Cummins is a real estate appraiser in Los Angeles, California with 38+ years of experience. Cummins provides real estate appraisals for banks, lenders, mortgage brokers, Appraisal Management Companies (AMCs), lawyers, Courts, factors and private parties for lending, lawsuits, probate, estate planning, divorce and all types of litigation. Cummins provides 1004, 1073, 1025 and other form reports, narrative reports and historical appraisals besides real estate research and appraisal advice.

Showing posts with label mckissock. Show all posts

Friday, January 12, 2024

McKissock Learning Will No Longer Offer PAREA Due to Costs by Mary Cummins Real Estate Appraiser

mckissock learning, mckissock,appraisal institute, parea, real estate appraiser, mary cummins, real estate appraisal, training, certified, residential, license, hud, fha

PAREA is the Practical Applications of Real Estate Appraisal. In order to become a licensed appraiser you currently need about a year or two and 1,000-1,500 hours of training experience as a trainee with another licensed and generally certified appraiser. You also need basic classes and other requirements. Because it was so difficult to find mentors willing to train trainees for free the government allowed the PAREA training alternative to hours with a live mentor. Real Estate Appraiser education provider McKissock Learning was going to be one of the government approved companies, organizations offering PAREA training. The Appraisal Institute is another organization offering the training.

Yesterday January 12, 2024 McKissock emailed people who were interested in the program that they would no longer be offering the PAREA program. See below email.

"Happy New Year to you and yours. We hope this letter finds you well. With a strong commitment to responsibility and transparency, we want to inform you about a significant decision regarding the McKissock PAREA (Practical Applications of Real Estate Appraisal) project.

After careful consideration and thorough evaluation of various factors, we have made the difficult decision to cancel the McKissock PAREA project. We understand that this news may be unexpected, and we want to provide you with a clear understanding of our reasoning and the steps we are taking moving forward.

One of the primary factors contributing to the cancellation is the substantial resource cost required to provide a product of the quality we envisioned. In our pursuit to deliver a premium solution, the associated costs exceeded initial estimates, resulting in a higher-end price to our customers. Regrettably, we recognize that this higher cost would inadvertently create a new barrier to entry into the appraisal profession – specifically, a financial obstacle."

The cost of the program was always a major issue and hurdle to entrance in the field. You couldn't even start the program without first paying for and taking $1,700 worth of McKissock classes. The Appraisal Institute stated the PAREA program would cost about $10,000 per a July 19, 2023 webinar. All of the training would be online. There would be no in person mentorship.

From a monetary point of view the expensive cost of the training might be a total waste without real mentorship. This is not a trial an error occupation. You need someone training you in the beginning. You won't make any money if you don't know what you're doing. The only people who could end up making money from the training were possibly the training organization. They'd make money from government grants, nonprofit grants and class fees from paying students. It'd be like those worthless online degrees.

Another main problem is the real estate appraisal market today is at its absolute lowest point. There's very little lending work. The main cause is our current high interest rates. No one is selling if they have to buy another home. Why lose a 2.5% interest rate and triple your monthly mortgage at 7.5% or so. No one would want to refinance for the same reason. Sales volume is at its lowest in about 20 years per Ryan Lundquist's fantastic statistics. I've seen the same in Los Angeles, California.

Another even bigger issue is the use of live appraisers has been decreasing recently because of appraisal waivers, AVMs (Automated Valuation Methods) and hybrid type appraisals. Even though a live appraiser is used for part of the hybrid appraisal they aren't being paid as much as a full appraisal, i.e. $75-$165 vs $300-$500. The few full inspection appraisals done by live appraisers are very complex appraisals which only appraisers with many years experience are allowed to do. There's just not as much work today for anyone.

Previously the government said there were not enough appraisers and now there are definitely way too many. If you look at Facebook appraiser groups, everyone is hurting. Many have retired or had to get side gigs. If a fully trained and experienced appraiser of 20 years can't get work, a newbie has no chance at making enough money to survive. Even people with 20-40 years of experience are quitting due to lack of work.

You'd have to really be an idiot to shell out $1,700 for basic classes, $10,000 for PAREA, $6,000 appraisal costs first year just to make no money. Few can afford that upfront cost even if they could make the money back in a year or two. Another huge hurdle is lenders only use appraisers with three years minimum experience. No one would hire you fresh out of PAREA.

I believe that McKissock realized there probably won't be enough people willing to pay for the classes at the moment to justify their training costs. They couldn't make enough profit off the program today. Even if the government and nonprofits offered grants to pay for the training the students probably wouldn't get any work from the program. No one would be happy. There would be a lot of online complaints.

I'm actually glad McKissock is not continuing with the program at this time for the sake of the potential new appraisers. Now is not the time to start out as an appraiser because of the market conditions. I would at a minimum wait until things rebound when rates go down. Maybe by then there will be an affordable PAREA program maybe subsidized by the government for people who can't afford it. You'd still need live experience and will have to deal with all the other issues noted above but it'd be better than what we have today.

*FTR I've been taking classes with McKissock since they first started around 1990. Back in the day they only offered in person classes taught by the McKissock's out of a small classroom in Orange County, California. Today I take bundled classes with Calypso because they're cheaper.

Mary Cummins of Cummins Real Estate is a certified residential licensed appraiser in Los Angeles, California. Mary Cummins is licensed by the California Bureau of Real Estate appraisers and has over 35 years of experience.

Mary Cummins, Mary K. Cummins, Mary Katherine Cummins, Mary, Cummins, #marycummins #animaladvocates #losangeles #california #wildlife #wildliferehabilitation #wildliferehabilitator #realestate #realestateappraiser #realestateappraisal #lawsuit real estate, appraiser, appraisal, instructor, teacher, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Pasadena, Brentwood, Bel Air, California, licensed, permitted, certified, single family, condo, condominium, pud, hud, fannie mae, freddie mac, fha, uspap, certified, residential, certified resident, apartment building, multi-family, commercial, industrial, expert witness, civil, criminal, orea, dre, brea insurance, bonded, experienced, bilingual, spanish, english, form, 1004, 2055, 1073, land, raw, acreage, vacant, insurance, cost, income approach, market analysis, comparative, theory, appraisal theory, cost approach, sales, matched pairs, plot, plat, map, diagram, photo, photographs, photography, rear, front, street, subject, comparable, sold, listed, active, pending, expired, cancelled, listing, mls, multiple listing service, claw, themls, historical appraisal, facebook, linkedin

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Mary Cummins

Mary Cummins of Cummins Real Estate Services has been in real estate since 1983, over 35 years. She is licensed by the Bureau of Real Estate Appraisers. Mary Cummins was an agent and broker licensed with the California Department of Real Estate selling residential income, commercial buildings, raw land and homes for Merrill Lynch Realty in Beverly Hills and Westside Properties in Los Angeles before concentrating on appraisals. Mary Cummins currently provides real estate appraisals, expert witness testimony, historical research, legal real estate research for mortgage brokers, banks, lawyers, factors, insurance companies, financial consultants and private individuals. Mary Cummins was born and raised in Southern California. Cummins attended Beverly Hills Good Shepherd Catholic School and Beverly Hills High School. Besides being on the Dean's list, Mary Cummins was a top ten national swimmer and competed on the men's water polo team. Mary Cummins began college at the age of 15 attending the University of Southern California on scholarship, majoring in Psychology/Sociology. http://www.animaladvocates.us http://www.facebook.com/AnimalAdvocatesUSA

Thursday, July 20, 2023

PAREA Update from David Samnick - Practical Applications of Real Estate Appraisal , comment by Mary Cummins

parea, practical applications of real estate appraisal, mary cummins, real estate appraiser, real estate appraisal, los angeles, california, hud, ai, appraisal institute, mckissock, aqb, Appraiser Qualifications Board, mentor, trainee, license, certified residential,

I haven't been following PAREA as closely as I should have but thankfully appraiser David Samnick has been following it. He attended an Appraisal Institute meeting yesterday about the program. It's disheartening to say the least. The purpose of PAREA was to make it easier, cheaper and faster for new appraisers to get the training and hours of real life experience they need to get their license. A main purpose was to help diversify appraisers by making it cheaper and getting rid of the mandatory mentor/trainee. Lower income people can't work as a trainee for free for two years. I wrote a few articles about this huge obstacle to getting a license. Here's one from June 2021. https://mary--cummins.blogspot.com/2021/06/difficulties-becoming-real-estate.html

This post below by David Samnick makes it clear that AI and others such as McKissock have used the issue of diversity just to line their pockets with money. The Appraisal Institute, McKissock make money selling education hours to appraisers. AI got a grant from the government to work on PAREA. May 18, 2023, the AQB approved the first PAREA program, belonging to the Appraisal Institute (AI). I wish I were wealthy and retired so I could train people for free. I'd only train POC if that were legal and not discriminatory.

"Practical Applications of Real Estate Appraisal (PAREA) is a program that aims to revolutionize the real estate industry by increasing the number of appraisers. However, after listening to the Appraisal Institute speaker at yesterdays board meeting it quickly became evident that this initiative is a complete failure.

A) You cannot start PAREA until you have received all your real estate appraisal education. 94 hours = $1,700 per McKissock

B) Appraisal Institute speaker said that most AMC's/banks won't accept licensed appraisers work so he suggests going the CR route. Cost to become a CR appraiser through PAREA - $10,000

C) PAREA is a complete online course. Zero mentorship in the real world. No physical measuring. No driving. No real time experience. No true mentorship.

D) No discussion with the PAREA student about the pay to play. Multiple MLS services, E&O insurance, business expenses, accounting, appraisal software, computers, reliable transportation, and other miscellaneous expenses. Total costs can exceed $6,000 per year.

E) The Appraisal Institute said that this would increase diversity into the appraisal field yet could not tell us the breakdown of how many applicants were minorities.

F) PAREA graduates will be scooped up by AMCS to sign off on Hybrid reports performed by third party data collectors.

G) PAREA graduates have no geographic competence.

H) Total cost for PAREA at the end of the day = $17,700 and potentially more.

The Average Joes argued several points in the board meeting.

A) A graduate of the PAREA course would be paid and treated like a trainee as they have no real-world experience.

B) We could have more appraisers back into the industry if banks/amcs would allow appraisers to use their trainees.

C) Reinstate Licensed appraisers to be able to mentor new trainees. This would introduce the next generation of appraisers into the business.

D) Petition FHA to reinstate any licensed appraiser who took the FHA course and had to pass the test.

E) More appraisers would hire trainees if the AMC model wasn't taking so much money out of the pockets of working appraisers. Work is slow. Most have the mentality that my bills come before your bills.

In closing PAREA launched in 2019. And the program has not been successful in diversifying the appraisal profession. In fact, a study by the Appraiser Qualifications Board found that the PAREA program has had a negative impact on diversity in the appraisal profession.

The study found that the PAREA program is disproportionately used by white appraisers. In fact, white appraisers are more than twice as likely to use the PAREA program than minority appraisers. The study also found that the PAREA program is not as effective in providing a more accessible pathway to licensure as the traditional apprenticeship model."

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7087764386198556672/

Below was stated May 2023 by AI. “Market research has shown that value proposition—what PAREA is worth to someone in the marketplace—is around $5,000,” DiBiaso said. “Our pricing strategy may be different than that and include scholarships and discounts and payment plans. We have a commitment to The Appraisal Foundation that we will give preference of our scholarships to minorities, veterans, and people who indicate a willingness to serve in rural areas. The scholarships will come from a number of different sources including AI.”

McKissock stated their program will be ready June 2023. “We are investing heavily in the technology tools that appraisers use,” Nancy Gerome said, McKissock’s appraisal general manager. “Our hope is to have them consistently trained. You’ll get all different types of properties and scenarios because we’re leaning into the technology and experience. We’re trying to be thorough, that’s why we’re taking our time. We want to get it right.”

McKissock staff is preparing their launch to accommodate thousands of trainees, over a staggered period. They estimate the average time a person will take to complete the program is six months. The cost for participating is not yet determined. Staff did confirm there will be a “buy now, pay later” option, as well as scholarships.

“We are building a scholarship program because we know one of the goals of PAREA is to bring diversity into the profession, and we want to make it as affordable as we can,” Gerome said. Those interested in participating in a PAREA program of either McKissock or AI need to have already completed their Qualifying Education. "

Clearly when the government said there was a probably with diversity among real estate appraisers and the government would give money to help diversify appraisers all these companies heard was MONEY. They will just be training more appraisers for more money and the appraisers will probably all still be mainly older white men.

Appraisal Institute talks about grants and scholarships for POC and women all the time. I tried to apply and they said I have to pay to join their organization before they'd even talk about it. What if I had no qualifications or were denied? I'd be out the membership fee which is not cheap. It normally costs $15,000 to become an AI MAI appraiser even though I have 40 years of experience and have taken every publicly available real estate appraisal class in existence over the last 40 years. This is clearly a racket when you consider the government gave them money for the program. Gate keeping with a membership fee to the Appraisal Institute before you can access government funding.