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Appraiser to stop releasing reports
Crabtree: Real estate insiders against 'truth'
| Tuesday, May 29 2007 6:30 PM
Last Updated: Tuesday, May 29 2007 6:33 PM
Local real estate appraiser Gary Crabtree announced in a letter Monday that he will no longer provide news media with monthly reports that examine the local real estate market, saying that his business has been damaged because "industry insiders don't want to hear the truth" about a troubled market.
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Local real estate appraiser Gary Crabtree announced he will no longer provide news media with monthly reports that examine the local real estate market, saying that his business has been damaged.
"I'm very sorry -- I just have to make that business decision," Crabtree said Tuesday. "And I think the letter itself explains that decision."
Crabtree still makes his reports available to real estate professionals, for a fee.
For two years, Crabtree, who runs Affiliated Appraisers, has been providing reports that compile single-family home market statistics, including unsold inventory, existing home prices and new home prices.
As a result, local lenders have ceased to give him appraisal assignments, Crabtree said in his letter, citing a similar "persecution" during the real estate recession of the '90s.
Michael Burger, a local commercial and residential appraiser, said that many home appraisers are probably coping with less business in a changing economy.
"Everything that has to do with the housing trade is slowing down," Burger said.
In his letter, Crabtree wrote that lenders have been asking appraisers to "hit" values in violation of the industry's ethical standards.
"That is absolutely true," said Ted Faravelli Jr., a spokesman for the California Association of Real Estate Appraisers. "I'm ashamed to say that."
Pressure on appraisers to deliver a desired home value is increasing as the real estate market cools, Faravelli said.
Recently, Crabtree has also alerted local, state and federal agencies to suspicious real estate transactions that he thinks may be examples of real estate fraud.
His letter bemoans a lack of interest on the part of regulatory agencies in this alleged criminal activity.