Dear Blog: Long time no write. The spirit usually hits when I'm in the car with no keyboard in sight. I store up ideas,  but my life is dictated by the immense paperwork that accompanies every listing and the noctural uploads of all that information into the websites of the world. Not to mention client time, which can be 24/7 some weeks. You, dear blog, have been left out but not forgotten.

But today, the spirit hits as I trudge back to the office to do one more feature sheet for an open house tomorrow. It's been one of the most miserable real estate days of the year -- a big sale appraising insanely low; an underground oil tank leaking into local groundwater.

I can take the oil aggravation. All these old tanks are leaking, so the surprise is muted. For decades, oil purveyors interested only in filling tanks have avoided mentioning to homeowners that they might want to test the darn leviathans lurking under their driveways and lawns. And so, years go by, metal corrodes, homeowners sell, only to realize they've been bamboozled. That oil that they thought was heating their homes was also seeping out and polluting the ground around them, the very ground their kids played on. Lucky for those who have insurance against such catastrophes, although not all oil tank insurance is the same and some is quite worthless. Deals stop cold as the DEP steps in and remediation begins.

But I'm having real trouble with appraisers, the very guys who thought every house a palace just months ago, are now saying sorry, big mistake, not worth a thin dime. Just 10 days to go on one of my precarious deals: We've crunched numbers and arrived at a mutually agreeable price. We've overcome a mold dispute (is it or isn't it black?) Now, we're faced with what is suddenly becoming real estate's worst nightmare -- that when buyers finally came back, the banks won't have them.

Now that the headlines are occasionally happier -- "Mortgage Applications Up 6.6% -- Demand for Purchase Loans, Refis Surges" on Inman News' website today -- what about the recent revisions in bank appraisal assignments? They're turning out to be a hideous failure. Deals are dropping like flies when out-of-area appraisers are the ones deciding value. Don't tell me a guy from across the state can come in and figure out neighborhood pluses and minuses or the impact of commute options and school performace on price. These are things that experienced agents know about, that buyers and sellers eat for breakfast but that banks and their now arms-length appraisal system know nothing.

 So much for all that buyer encouragement and seller hand-holding and the 6.6% spirt in mortgage applications if agreed-upon sale prices are dashed at the alter of fear and mistrust by over-cautious emissaries of our hideously tarnished lending system.

Dear blog, sorry for the vitriol,  but I knew you'd be there for me.