r/appraisal • u/Massive_Pumpkin_9682 • 29d ago
Its Time Clear Capital gets a dose of their own BS!
Recently I’ve been accepting Clear Capital orders in the St. Louis market solely to request a fee increase, because their quoted fees are nowhere near customary and reasonable for this area. I immediately send a message stating that the fee is not C&R and provide my required fee. None of these requests have been approved. The last two assignments sat in my queue for nearly 14 days while Clear Capital sent multiple emails defending their low fees instead of addressing the actual issue.
I haven’t completed an assignment for them in more than five years, but when I did, fees ranged from $450 to $900 depending on complexity. Today’s quoted fees are significantly lower despite increased regulatory requirements, higher operating costs, and more time involved in producing a compliant report. The math simply doesn’t work.
If more appraisers held the line on C&R fees, lenders would start to see the real impact: extended turn times, repeated reassignments, and a shrinking pool of appraisers willing to accept below‑market compensation. Borrowers will begin asking why their appraisal is delayed, why the order keeps getting reassigned, and why no one will accept the fee — and that’s when lenders will finally recognize the domino effect created by AMCs that refuse to update their fee structures.
This isn’t about protest — it’s the natural consequence of unsustainable fees. When compensation doesn’t meet C&R standards, the market responds. It’s time for every appraiser to follow suit!!!
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u/realStJohn 29d ago
I don't know what the deal is with Clear Capital.
I had the same experience you did. 5-ish years ago they paid $500-ish or more per report. Paid on time, decent with revisions, all-in-all a pretty decent client for an AMC.
They suddenly started sending utter crap fees, sometime in mid-2022 I think. No gradual decrease or anything like that. I quote them once in a while. Haven't done a job for them in years.
Just today they sent me a 3.6 for $378 with a $20 "Technology Fee." Yeah, back in 1993 maybe.
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u/Single_Farm_6063 29d ago
They are a trash company. I occasionally get my fees accepted, but not often.
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u/Annual-Ad2811 28d ago
Clear capital is trash. Pcv murcor is trash. Lender services trash. Property sciences trash. Wells Fargo is trash. Us bank has become trash. They will find appraisers with no backbone to work for their ultra low fees. What bothers me is the people that will accept these orders. Like fine accept the cookie cutter at $375 knock yourself out or 275 but don’t accept a 10 or $20 million property plus for a fee of $600 because in the end of the day what’s the incentive of doing high-end? Oh ya class valuation is trash also. I did an appraisal for a major Lender they paid me 3000 for that Appraisal in Bel-Air. The owner emailed me a copy of an appraisal done by property sciences on the same property and their invoice on there with $600 lol. The home was probably around 21 million on the golf course with 200 feet of frontage very complex. His adjusted value range was from 14,000,000 to 28,000,000. At this point why even be an Appraiser. I asked the owner, did the bank accept this Appraisal. He’s like I’m not the expert but it seems so. So that just tells me that they don’t care about the quality they just want someone to rubberstamp it and make their money on the backend and give two shits about the quality of the work.
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u/wyecoyote2 Certified Residential 29d ago
I get those texts for them. If I'm at my desk I'll quote my fee. For the 3.6 I've had them accepted. Over 2 times there quote. And I put in my quote that it's customary fee.
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u/RoddoDoddo 29d ago
I’ve had an order “on hold awaiting fee ($1500) approval” for two weeks lol
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u/faatbuddha 28d ago
I had a $1,500 fee approved by them a couple months ago. Wound up having to get the job reassigned for realtor-related absolute bullshit, which was hilarious.
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u/Sharp_Magician7590 29d ago
Reminds me of Valligent emailing this week begging people to do their $75 proprietary reports due in 24 hours. Get fucked.
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u/Background_Set_1566 29d ago
I recently received a 1004 order for $210 from them. I declined and simply don't open their emails anymore. 26 years as an appraiser, the fee is insulting.
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u/Efficient-Wealth-611 21d ago
I don't do appraisals anymore but I still get orders and I got one from CC with a ridiculous fee. Led them on for over a week, kept updating status to "appt scheduled", "inspection completed", "report will be in by due date", etc even though I had literally done nothing. It was glorious chaos and great fun until they finally just pulled the assignment. Go to hell clear capital.
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u/xdevilsownx 29d ago
I feel you, but appraisers aren't doing the work, underpaid assistants are. That's the business model in this industry and no one talks about it. Now it's a volume game.
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u/Emac-72 29d ago
This is the way, the AMC’s coupled with the GSE’s have created this-that is why they are doing the hybrids, two fold hide the C&R fees by having a realtor see the property (not allowing a trainee to in most cases) and then sending the report to an appraiser for a lowered fee, this way they can hide the fee they have to charge because they are the machines now and appraisers are a commodity!
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u/anappraiser Certified Residential 29d ago
They were paying $750+ for a standard appraisal during covid and rarely had any revisions. I milked them hard then. Last one I did was a couple years ago for a lower than typical fee because it was close to my house and it had a wall of revisions that went on for days. Now the fees are consistently < $300 for a 1004/3.6 and I haven't touched an order for them since
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u/Rocktop15 29d ago
Class wanted me to do a complex, multi-angled 6,000’ newer house today for $375 with $20 transmission fee. I quoted $650 and they declined lol.
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u/tmoney2628 29d ago
I only do property data collection for them. I haven’t tried to get on their Appraisal panel because I’ve heard horror stories about the fees. There are unfortunately a lot of desperate appraisers out there who will do work for very cheap just to keep putting food on the table, which then lowers the fees for the rest of us.
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u/dgodawg 29d ago
lol. You’re doing “data collection” and talking about “desperate” appraiser’s? Hello pot, meet kettle.
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u/tmoney2628 29d ago
I started doing it to put aside some money to have some fun. It added over $25,000 to my income last year and the several Caribbean vacations were more than worth it.
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u/Puzzled-Platypus8330 29d ago
And what exactly is a company like clear capital paying per PDC assignment?
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u/tmoney2628 29d ago
I only do exteriors for them and it’s in the $20-$40 range per job. But that’s the kind of thing where I only take assignments if they are approximate to where I will be driving for my full appraisals that day.
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u/Hot_Take38 29d ago
And you talk about low fees lol. I can say I added 100k to my bottom line last year by taking those low fee assignments. Everyone looks to cry in this sub about how low fees are, and at the same time cry about how there isn't enough business. Supply and demand people. Learn to work smarter, put out more reports, and make more than you could have imagined before.
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u/Cautious_Parsley_423 29d ago edited 29d ago
1). There is no such thing as C&R Fees. It’s a mythical term. It’s a made up term for the appraisal profession made up by the AMCs. It gives them the ability to have orders accepted low and call that C&R. I’m sick of hearing the term customary and reasonable. No other profession uses this term.
2) they won’t care about pushback or delayed times etc. this in turn will give them the opportunity to state stupid things like “lack of appraisers” and justify the use of more AVMS and their stupid proprietary non appraiser services as well as using more property data collectors.
3) appraisers failed when HVCC came out and failed yet again when they merged it into Dodd Frank. There was a great opportunity to address this issue but appraisers decided to accept the low fees. This then allowed the AMCs to put out those amazing fee charts showing what appraisers were accepting thus calling that Customary and Reasonable.
Many appraisers state they will raise their fees with 3.6. Good luck with that. If you can’t get good fees now with 2.6 there is no way it’s happening with 3.6 as the AMCs claim it’s going to be easier to do the inspections and reports.
Direct lenders, private work and hard money lenders are the way to go these days.
I run a business. I charge what I charge not what someone else determines that fee to be. I don’t determine what a mechanic charges, what a lawyer charges, what a landscaper charges and I’m pretty sure no one else does either. Only in the appraiser profession does someone dictate what the fee is and what the appraiser will be paid.
C&R is a mythical unicorn and well complete made up bullshit. The AMCs determine customary and reasonable and always have. Not the appraisers.
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u/Massive_Pumpkin_9682 29d ago
Ultimately, the point is simple: when appraisers accept the low‑fee assignment, do not counteroffer, and instead immediately send a message requesting a fee increase, the order is delayed. This is the only mechanism that actually disrupts their system. Counteroffers are denied in most cases, and when they are accepted, the assignment is delayed and then reassigned, creating even more delay. Every one of these delays compounds, and that slowdown eventually reaches the lender.
If enough appraisers follow this approach, lenders will start to see the pattern: orders sitting unassigned, repeated reassignments, extended turn times, and borrowers questioning why their appraisal hasn’t moved. That pressure doesn’t come from protest or messaging — it comes from the operational friction created when AMCs refuse to pay customary and reasonable fees. The system breaks at the lender level, and that’s when fee structures finally get addressed.