Lamenting the effect of "the allure of easy money" on former tile salesmen and investment analysts, USA Today this week reported on the contraction of real estate jobs as the housing market normalizes. "As the housing market slows, there will likely be a lot of stories of people who are bailing out of their real estate jobs and other professions related to housing -- appraisers, mortgage brokers and home construction workers -- and many not by choice," the paper said.

Appraisers are no strangers to doom and gloom predictions, nor, unfortunately, are they strangers to being lumped in with commissioned salespeople and considered part of the same job sector. But the reality is that while as the housing pie shrinks there will be real estate agents and mortgage brokers who are left out in the cold, the same is not true to nearly the same extent for appraisers.

It takes forever and a day to truly enter the appraisal profession. Trainees who started within the last couple years because of dollar signs in their eyes might be in for a rough time -- but we think you'll agree that "easy money" is not the best reason to become an appraiser in the first place. New entrants who have a long horizon and are building a knowledge base, best practices and relationships for the long haul are the ones who will continue to do well.

As the housing economy normalizes, and "belts tighten," due diligence will increase, not decrease. Look at it from two different angles. From a buyer/borrower point of view, when the housing market is 2003 hot, you can choose the loan program, lender and broker who can get you into your new home the fastest and most cheaply. As lending standards ratchet up, you as a borrower have less low-hanging fruit to pick from and can't count on the broker down the street undercutting the one you're sitting across from. From an underwriter standpoint, the more the revenue stream resembles a (comparative) trickle the less margin for error you're comfortable with. If housing values aren't going through the roof anymore there will be fewer buyers on the secondary market and the ones there are will themselves have a lesser tolerance for risk. All this points to the fact that the loans that aren't going to be happening anymore are the quickie no-doc AVM-backed loans, not the kinds of loans appraisers help the decisionmakers sign off on.

Finally, a quarter of all loans made in the fourth quarter of 2005 were adjustable rate mortgages. Trillions -- with a 'T' -- of dollars in loan payments will be spiking as 1-year, 3-year and 5-year adjustable rate loans adjust. Many borrowers will not be able to afford the new monthly payments and will have to refinance again. Many were counting on doing just that, in fact. You don't need a real estate agent to refinance, and increasingly you don't need a mortgage broker, either -- mortgage companies are handling refis themselves for loans in their portfolios more and more often. So any reduction in agents and brokers will simply be amplified compared to appraisers.

Appraisers who have been in business as long as a la mode has have seen six or seven downturns in the mortgage lending cycle, and have gotten through each one just fine. Just like the cry of "housing bubble" has been slung around too liberally lately, the impact of a normalization on the appraisal profession is likewise overstated.

Sometimes you don't know whether to laugh or cry. So you do both. You laugh when you hear that AVMs are more accurate than appraisers when you read, in the Sunday (March 19) New York Times:

CAROL CAGGIANO was planning an expensive wedding for her daughter at the same time that she made an offer on a house in Glen Cove in January. Even though Ms. Caggiano had only $10,000 to put down on her offer of $465,000, the seller accepted.

Then, in what seems like a clever accounting maneuver, the buyer and seller, and their lawyers, agreed to list the purchase price of the house as $478,000, with the condition that the seller would use the extra money to pay Ms. Caggiano's closing costs.

While this sounds like a major financial concession on the part of the seller, real estate professionals say it is more a matter of being flexible. In the end, they say, the seller nets just as much money as if he or she had not paid the closing costs

If you're in a robust market, you've encountered this many times in the last few years. And you can spot it, usually, and call the listing agent or even appraiser on your comp to double check what the "real" purchase price was. The next time an AVM makes such a call and recognizes the selling price of the above house as $465,000 will be the first.

Then you stop laughing when you read later in the same article -- the Sunday New York Bleeping Times:

Updated lending laws in many states require that lenders be informed when a seller concession is buried in the contract price.... The amount added to the original offer is then considered in the appraisal.

That appraisal is a key to a deal.... As with any mortgage, if the appraisal is not as high as the inflated price, which includes the closing costs, the deal is off.

"The appraisal has to come in at the increased purchased price, and obviously the credit and everything else needs to be excellent," [real estate lawyer Paul] Greenstein said.

Some real estate agents say that in theory concessions can be seen as a drawback for the seller.

Kathy Anastasio, who owns Anastasio Associates in Huntington, said, "By putting in a seller's concession we're expecting the appraisal to go higher" than the agreed-upon price, so that suggests that the seller might not be maximizing his or her return

Even with shocking, insulting evidence to the contrary printed in the Sunday New York Times, policymakers still fall for the argument that appraisers are the problem when it comes to inflated values.