For many, the American dream looks something like this – a home, a respectable job and a healthy family. Nothing extraordinary or above reason. Unfortunately, this simple dream is drifting farther away from people everyday.

As unemployment rates continue to rise, homeowners are having a particularly rough time. Unfortunately, now there’s a new bully showing its face.

The home appraisal process.

It’s a necessity for anyone purchasing a home and an opportunity for money-hungry companies to hide unsavory practices behind the complexity of the transaction and make a pretty penny while doing so.

After learning from many sources that corruption may be rampant in the home-appraisal process, our firm started to investigate appraisal management companies across the country. Our top concern right now – homeowners. We believe this group takes the brunt of the alleged scheme and many from what we’ve heard are completely oblivious to it.

The situation looks like this: Sally wants to buy a home and uses the appraisal management company her lender recommends - we’ll call this company X. Company X then outsources the work to an independent appraiser. This person does the work and company X bullies them into accepting a below market price for their work. Company X then turns around and charges Sally a highly inflated fee for no work completed on their end.

Multiply this scheme by hundreds of thousands of home appraisals in a year, multiplied by many appraisal management companies throughout the country and you get a lot of homeowners wrongly targeted by these companies merely as a means to increase profits and line the pockets of executives.

It’s no secret the real estate market is in shambles and we know homeowners have enough weight on their shoulders without having to worry about who’s on their side and who’s trying to pull a fast one.

We want to hear from homeowners. If you purchased a home and went through the home appraisal process in the past few years please contact us.

Where you live and what company you used doesn’t matter. While reports indicate the practice may be prevalent, the good news is the number of homeowners affected far outweighs the number of appraisal management companies – giving you, the homeowner, strength in numbers.

Please contact our firm through our Web site, e-mail [email protected] or join the investigation. We’re happy to offer our thoughts on your course of action and what steps we can take together to begin restoring your family’s dream.