Appraiser denies providing inflated values
| Thursday, Sep 13 2007 11:13 PM
Last Updated Friday, Mar 27 2009 01:39 PM
The owner of San Joaquin Appraisals Inc., a company searched by the FBI and IRS as part of an investigation of the Crisp & Cole companies, defended his reputation Thursday.
"I have nothing to be ashamed of," said Kirk "Mark" Newton. "I stand by the quality of my work."
Agents came to Newton's office at 4500 California Ave. with a federal search warrant Wednesday morning. They were looking for documents detailing transactions on 48 properties handled by the former Crisp & Cole Real Estate firm in Bakersfield, Newton said. Newton's business performed appraisals on 11 of those properties and agents confiscated those files, he said.
Eight of the 11 were used in financing transactions, Newton said.
Over the past three to four years, Newton estimates his company worked on 220 appraisals for David Crisp and Carl Cole, the former principals of Crisp & Cole Real Estate and a related mortgage arm, Tower Lending.
Each appraisal earns a flat rate of $400, Newton said.
The transactions done for Crisp and Cole represented less than 1 percent of his business, he said.
Newton could not answer how many appraisals his company performed over the past four years, but said he now works on about 70 to 80 a month.
Newton employs two other licensed appraisers, Jaron Parks and Curtis Studebaker.
Most appraisers manage little more than one single-family residence appraisal a day, said Tony Contreras, a Bakersfield appraiser in the business for more than 30 years.
The FBI will not comment on details of Wednesday's searches.
But Skip Ogle, a residential appraiser in Bakersfield, suspects the agents were looking for inflated appraisals used to defraud lenders.
An inflated appraisal could unfairly help someone selling or refinancing a home to extract non-existent value from the property.
"That harms the lender and the investor and, possibly, the buyer," Ogle said.
Lenders and real estate professionals sometimes pressure appraisers to "hit" a predetermined property value, said Ted Faravelli Jr., executive director of the California Association of Real Estate Appraisers. To do so violates industry ethics, he said.
"I call it fishing for appraisers," Faravelli said. "And they'll go down the list -- who's going to give me the highest number?"
Newton denies ever providing an artificially high value on an appraisal. His work complies with the professional guidelines outlined by the Office of Real Estate Appraisers, the state's regulatory agency for the industry, he said.
The appraisers office would not say if any complaints have been filed against San Joaquin Appraisals.
Newton did the appraisals for 9619 Marseilles Ave. and 14309 San Jose Ave., but said they were never used in financial transactions.
Both addresses appeared in a 25-page complaint filed by the state Department of Real Estate Monday.
Regulators allege Crisp paid a staffer, Janie "J.J." Stockton, to buy the 14309 San Jose Ave. home.
Cole deceived lenders when he borrowed $1.45 million to buy 9619 Marseilles Court, regulators charged.
Newton wanted to disassociate himself from two other properties named in the complaint: 11504 Haydock Court and 11219 Draper Court. He did not appraise them, he said.
Business relations with Crisp and Cole were always cordial, Newton said.
Neither Crisp nor Cole could be reached for comment on Wednesday's federal raids.
Both Crisp's sales office, Crisp Real Estate Inc., and Points West Realty, where Cole is the broker, were open for business Thursday.
