One at a time, one at a time . . .

Did you get the call? I guess Lendervend has re-instated a bunch of the Suspended appraisers on a probationary "one at a time" basis.  This means they have full access to orders, but can only have 1 in their Queue at a time (not counting "In QC" of course). They would not say how long the "probationary" status would last, or if it was even permanent. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. If you were Suspended and did not get re-instated, give them a call or email, it might not be too late to plead your case.

The "8 Days In April" curse

So I have it on good authority what caused the Appraiser Suspensions over at Lendervend/Provident Funding in May.  Lendervend employees swept through all of their appraisers' accounts and anyone who had a turn time of over 8 days, just on April appraisals, was suspended.  If the appraiser has good reasons why the file took so long (out of town borrowers, higher complexity property, etc) they are letting them send in a letter basically explaining their case in hopes to get reinstated. I understand that they are going to make a decision on a bunch of appraisers at once.  If you were suspended in the recent sweep, I recommend getting these letters in ASAP, because I am sure that once they make their decisions it will be a HUGE pain to get them to revisit the issue.  Send them to as many email addresses for Lendervend employees that you have (get them from your conditions, communications, etc) and they should get forwarded to the right place.

To those "Suspended" within the past few weeks, any luck?

Has anyone "Suspended" from Lendervend's Real Estate Appraiser Panel in the past few weeks received any response to a rebuttal yet? I have a few really good friends that were suspended that were able to submit "letters of explanation", basically to plead their case to stay on the list.  None has received word back yet, but I am curious to see if anyone has been let back on.  If you are one of the unlucky ones that got Suspended off the AMC list, but feel you were done so without merit, get those letters in, because I get the impression that as they make final decisions this month the list will be locked down for a while after wards. Send me a message to lendervendorders gmail com or post a comment here and let us know your story, good or bad. maybe we can help or learn from what you have going on.

WOW! Hope you all made it. (aka Times They Are a Changin')

So it looks like Lendervend has made a HUGE sweep of its appraiser roster.  It appears as though a LOT of appraisers were "Suspended" and are not able to get orders right now. From what I have been able to gather, they wanted to clean out slow and sloppy appraisers, and get rid of people breaking the "third party capture" rule.  They went through their list and looked at turn times, and conditions, and removed anyone they felt was not performing.  They SAY they also Suspended a lot of appraisers that were using those "order grabbing" companies, but I am skeptical of that. The only one I can think of that they would have been able to track at this point would have been the one that required you to change your email address to their servers (which is stupid in the first place because your email address would show that you were using the service, but whatever). I do, however, believe that Lendervend is starting to hire some new technicians, or the current ones are getting up to speed, and they soon will be able to track anyone using those third party order grabbing companies.

If you were one of the "unlucky" ones that was Suspended, all hope is not lost.  Give Lendervend a call or email and plead your case.  Send them a letter explaining why you did (whatever you were Suspended for) and how you are going to change course and learn from it.  They are just people over there, like you and me, and if you show them that you are willing to correct your performance you might have a shot. Of course, in order to get orders you will need to hire someone to sit at YOUR machine (or in your office anyway) and check the site for orders, but if you can get even 1 a day it should pay for itself.

With all of this being said, I am making some changes too. No longer am I going to create tools for Lendervend order grabbing.  I believe that era is over.  They are really showing how concerned they are with automation, and are looking to start making examples of people that do not live by the Terms and Conditions (for both order capturing automation and turn times/quality of work).  I am now going to focus my attention on helping appraisers become better at appraising.  Not necessarily at "how" to appraise, there are better training and educational outlets for that, but on how to be a better Appraiser. This means knowing what tools to use, how to be as productive as possible, how to speak to clients and underwriters, how to explain appraisals to the borrowers, etc. I am not doing this because I see myself as any better than any of you, but I know that if I research, write about, and present this sort of information, it will make me better at all of these things.

I was "Active" and now I am "Registered"

This is an update to my last post.  It appears that if you change your password in the Lendervend System they change your status from "Active" to "Registered".  I think this is a database issue and when the database does whatever updating it does each night it should put you right back to "Active".  No word on whether or not orders are available to you at the time you show as "Registered". If anyone knows, please post the info in the comments section.

Help! I Was "Inactivated"!

Lendervend's website is built on ANCIENT technology (well in the internet world anyway) and their database has a ton of problems. If your account ever gets set to "Not Registered" or "Inactive" and you don't know why, email them ( lendervend@providentfunding.com ) and ask them to look at your account. I have been marked Inactive for changing my phone number, and for no reason at all. Every time I contact them they fix it within 24 hours. I just think that their system is so poorly built that ANY changes to your account, or their servers, can lead to you inadvertently being deactivated. It does not necessarily mean you have been kicked off of their appraiser panel or "blacklisted" by Provident Funding.