Debra Urianek is a Certified Residential Appraiser from East Islip, NY and is co-owner of Orion Appraisals and Management with her husband Bill. Debbie and Bill have an appraisal practice which includes rural and suburban portions of Long Island as well as urban areas in the outer boroughs of New York City.
Debbie has been practicing as an appraiser for more than twenty years and has been working with AMCs for most of her appraisal career. Approximately 90 to 95% of her appraisal assignments currently are from AMCs, as opposed to approximately 85% one year ago. Most of the AMCs that she deals with are larger firms, although she deals with a number of smaller AMCs too, and some of these working relationships go back almost to the beginning of her appraisal career. During this past year she reports little change in her price structure with the exception of across the board increases with the advent of Form 1004MC and one AMC which immediately increased fees for FHA appraisals by $100 on February 15th in response to the FHA’s Mortgagee Letter 2009-28 (which includes the mandate that “FHA-approved lenders have new responsibilities to ensure that FHA appraisers are '…compensated at a rate that is customary and reasonable for appraisal services in the market area…”)
Debbie has been a friend of mine for about 15 years and she is serious about providing quality appraisals and knows her market area well. She is not only one of the hardest working appraisers I have met but she is also honest and very direct in her communications. During the “sub-prime craziness” earlier in this decade I would not have wanted my Mom to hear Debbie’s response to a mortgage broker asking her to push values! Debbie does not tolerate attempts to influence her value opinions and reports to me that the AMCs that she has long-standing relationships with do not pressure her; I would expect that any new AMCs that tried to do so would have a rude awakening.
Debbie has a good support staff and attempts to maintain clear channels of communications with the AMCs that she deals with. Many appraisers new to working with AMCs understandably lose patience with uninformed, non-appraiser employees (“phone slaves” as they are sometimes derogatively called) but Debbie and her staff try to be proactive by efficiently processing orders and providing “statuses” in a timely manner to their clients.
Debbie mentioned one bad experience receiving payment from AMCs. Several years ago when Express Financial Service shut down, Orion Appraisal was owed more than $20,000 in appraisal fees. After a lengthy period of time and a number of court filings, she was able to recover approximately 1/3 of the money owed. Except for this one instance, Debbie reports that the AMCs she deals with adhere to their payment schedules with some paying every two weeks, some on 30 day cycles and others paying either immediately upon the appraisal clearing a review process. A link to an article about Express Financial Service and the problems appraisers had is found here:
Express Financial's Shutdown Wallops Real Estate Contractors