Jim Goodrich, SRA, MAI
RAC President

Twenty Years
A Second Rush to Quality

Twenty years ago, in 1990, a small but very forward thinking group of appraisers from all parts of the country gathered in Boston and Relocation Appraisers and Consultants or RAC was launched. Today, in 2010 as we look back on that time, we see many parallels between 1990 and 2010. In 1990 we were just coming out of the 80’s where we saw a boom and bust cycle which has not been repeated until now. We observed the collapse of the Savings and Loan Institutions and record number of bank failures. Sound familiar? In the aftermath of that period we witnessed a Rush to Quality in the appraisal field. In the early 1990’s we saw the passage of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act or FIRREA which, among other things, put a firewall between the appraiser and the loan production staff in the banks. Today we have the HVCC which puts a firewall between the loan production staff and the appraiser in the mortgage lending sector. In the early 1990’s we saw stricter regulation and new licensing and certification of appraisers in each state in an attempt to assure better appraiser quality. And today in an attempt to again assure better appraiser quality we see HUD now requiring their appraisers be certified and not just licensed. We again find ourselves in a Rush to Quality cycle, whether the appraisal is for mortgage, relocation, or other purposes.

Nowhere is this trend more evident than in the Relocation Sector. As in 1990 when the conditions were fertile for the birth of RAC, today there is the same cry for quality relocation appraisals and our members are answering the call.  There is a lot of stress and flux in the markets today as we see a few markets appearing to stabilize and even improve while others are drifting along a flat bottom and still others apparently still yet to hit bottom. And while we would like to paint each geographic metro location with a broad brush, we know that each metro location is very segmented by submarkets both by location and price range. End of the year Regional Summaries have been prepared by local RAC members and can be found on the Publications page under the Regional Summaries tab. In addition, the RAC Report is posted each quarter. This is an excellent resource for relocation coordinators.

To the users of our appraisal reports, we are gratified by your continued trust in RAC over 20 years and we pledge to continue to provide you with the most up to date and highest quality analysis and conclusions in our reports. To non-RAC appraisers, we are very interested in getting to know you if you are an experienced professional who seeks to be the best in the world of relocation appraising. I urge you to contact me personally or any other RAC member. And to our membership, I want to thank the many of you who have been so active over the past year and will continue in the next year in leadership positions whether it is with RAC, Worldwide ERC, the Appraisal Institute, or any other professional organization. Your leadership and service is what makes RAC what it is. And finally, to the visionaries who founded RAC twenty years ago, please accept our appreciation. The founding members are:

Ronald F. Bomba, SRPA, SCRP
Malcolm D. Buchanan, SRA, CRP
W. Thomas Cryer, SRA, SCRP
Nancy Deninno, IFA
Henry R. Fontes, IFAS,, SCRP
Robert C. Nelson, SRA
William M. Roth, IFAS
Arnold M. Schwartz, SRA, SCRP
Joseph K. Taylor, SCRP
Paul Taylor, IFAS, SRA, SCRP
Alvin L. Wagner Jr., SRA, SCRP

As we celebrate our 20th year as an organization, I look forward to serving as the 2010-2011 president of Relocation Appraisers and Consultants.

Jim Goodrich, SRA, MAI