The average business day turn times for different counties here in Portland are varying to a strange degree. This is because there just aren’t enough appraisers for all the people moving into Portland.
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Our office recently had a transaction that was supposed to close at the end of September but got postponed by half of a month purely because the appraisal took so long to come in. Why?
Today we’ve invited Peter Wease, our preferred lender from Fairway Independent Mortgage, to talk about turn times for appraisals in the Portland area and how they’re affecting transaction timelines. According to Peter, this type of delay isn’t uncommon. His company has been tracking this type of occurrence for the past year, and they see weekly updates based on different counties.
As you can see in the video above, on September 18th, Clackamas County’s average business day turn time was almost 21 days. On October 3rd, it increased to 23 days. This is in contrast, however, to Washington County, whose average business day turn time dropped from 28 days on September 18th to 16.5 days on October 23rd.
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The appraisers need help.
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The primary factor in this kind of drastic variance from county to county is the fact that roughly 111 people are moving to Portland every single day, and there just aren’t enough appraisers to keep up. The best way to change this turn time, then, is to get more help to the appraisers.
Another consequence of this situation is that appraisal fees have soared. Appraisers are getting inundated by other appraisal management companies, so they’re demanding higher fees and being more selective in which appraisals they choose to undertake. Who pays for that increase? The customer. It’s unfortunate, but it’s the truth.
The moral of the story is that, for the time being, it’s going to be hard to close a transaction in just 30 days in the Portland area. You’d be well-advised to prepare for it to take as long as 45 or even 50 days. In addition, let your clients know about what’s going on with these turn times so they can prepare as well.
If you have any other questions for Pete about current mortgage rates, you can call him at 503-267-6391.
As always, if there’s anything else you’d like us to address relative to the mortgage finance aspect of real estate transactions, give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to talking with you soon!
