There’s an old adage…you get what you pay for.

Generally speaking, if one desires quality, one is willing to pay a bit more to assure that the product or service meets the purchase criteria. And quality generally demands more time and expense to be met.

Nearly every product starts with a 3 sided equilateral triangle with the points being - quality…time (speed)…cost. Pick any two you want to dominate and the third point is compromised. The triangle is now lopsided. You say you want quality…then it takes time and a decent income in about the same proportions. You say you want speed…then quality probably will be sacrificed, and maybe the price. You want it cheap…then time will be shortened and quality may be substandard.

It seems in recent years, the concept of quality in appraisal reports has eroded due to the decline in fees paid to the appraiser. This is borne out when report reviews are done by qualified and experienced review appraisers, and the conditions demanded by the assignment client is evaluated. Quick ‘n cheap has resulted in reports that are not USPAP compliant. And appraisers are not really earning what they should be worth.

So…pizza in relationships to reports, and income? It’s puzzling at first bite. But it makes sense. In today’s society, we are accustomed to instant gratification. “Just give me the report…quick.” That’s the mantra of mortgage lending. Quality…the tastiest ingredients…takes a back seat to cheaper products and details. Quality details in their entirety get dropped out of reports in place of boiler plate generic comments that are not specific to a particular property. Quality has diminished, as had potential earnings.

We are so accustomed to ‘making’ a pizza by going to the store and buying a product in a box that we forget what it takes to actually produce that product. It all starts with the ingredients carefully tended by farmers over many months. Then those ingredients are assembled by the pizza maker into a tasty pie we all enjoy. There are individual items that when combined properly bring us an enjoyable meal. But we all know that cheaper ingredients make for a lousy pizza. And cheaper, less detailed reports leads to indigestion both for the lender and the appraiser at some point in the future.

Appraisal reports are no different than a quality pizza. But many clients and lenders think that a quality report is similar to the pizza they ‘make’ with no effort. Go to the store (inspect), choose the boxed pizza (research the data), stick it into the oven for 20 minutes (write the report), and wa-la, it’s ready to eat (submit the report). What they conveniently forget is the assembling of the report ingredients starts way back on the ‘farm,’ and takes much time to nurture properly to insure quality.

So it comes down to ‘what kind of pizza maker are you?’ And ‘what quality of pizza do you want to produce?’