Appraisal News and Appraisal Tips For Real Estate Appraisers - Your source for appraisal industry news, appraisers' opinions, and discussions of appraisal issues
VA Announces Electronic Appraisal Requirements: Appraisals must be in MISMO XML Effective June 1, 2014, all Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) appraisals will be processed in WebLGY under the VA Appraisal Management System (AMS). Therefore, beginning June 1, 2014, all VA appraisals must be uploaded in WebLGY in Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization (MISMO) compliant XML 2.6 GSE file format as VA will no longer accept appraisals uploaded in WebLGY in PDF format. Prior to June 1, 2014, VA appraisals must continue to be uploaded in WebLGY in PDF file format. Historically, VA appraisal form/formats conformed to appraisal industry form/format...
Appraisers to be paid within… It is all-too-rare that we hear positive news regarding the appraisal profession. There is an awful lot of complaining that goes on, most of it justifiable, but little good news that gets shared. Part of the problem is that there is no central source for information regarding our profession which appraisers might utilize in order to find out what is going on across the country and affecting our profession, and could be used to enhance our industry and our citizens in our own state. From what I have seen, most of any good news is being...
Back to Basics (Part 2): The Cost Approach – An Approach to Value, Without Worth, Really? The foundations of appraisal were based upon three independent approaches to value. A system, when developed correctly, presents a check and balance within the report. The idea being that when an appraiser takes the time to develop each report, the data will show three independent motivations and three separate value conclusions. Nonetheless, the conclusions will support one another because the underlying principle for each approach is the principal of substitution. For the purposes of valuation or real estate appraisal, the principle of substitution is...
…“preaching” about the basics of this industry… The more I read residential mortgage related appraisals, underwriter comments and comments from the quality assurance departments from major lenders, the more I have come to realize that it is far beyond time to get back to “preaching” about the basics of this industry. For those of you who have been in the business back when you would take the photos, pull it out of the camera, wait a few moments before you pulled the front off the photo before coating it with the “magic wand” to keep it from fading (thank you...
Please consider utilizing the following statements in your reports… In my years of appraising, I have had had to argue with many Lenders, Attorneys, and general pains in the butt. What many of us have found is that when Banks screw up, they come knocking at your door. What we need to do as appraisers is to state the separation of Lending liability to appraisal liability. Please consider utilizing the following statements in your reports after your statements of intended users that is required in your reports. I have been using this for years in my reports as it returns...
The good appraisers are leaving mortgage appraising as fast as they can. Thus far the housing industry has been applying “Band-Aid” solutions to the bigger real estate crisis. There are several problems going on at the same time, all contributing to the big picture, which is bleak to say the least. One true crisis in the real estate industry is an “information crisis.” This information problem, trickles down to appraisals, lenders, and ultimately, mortgage investors. Standardization, national guidelines, and disclosures are the only way back from this nightmare (i.e. the RESPA disclosure. One fee on the good faith estimate for...
Is Sharing a Report with a Fellow Appraiser a Violation of USPAP Confidentiality?…Appraisers routinely share confidential information & communicate assignment results with other appraisers… Appraisers frequently are faced with chances to make mistakes related to confidentiality. The Confidentiality Section of the ETHICS RULE of Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP), as published by the Appraisal Standards Board (ASB) of the Appraisal Foundation and enforced by the North Carolina Appraisal Board, provides the rules for appraisers in North Carolina. Appraisers often are reminded about and advised how to avoid the pitfalls of communicating with property owners, real estate brokers, lenders...
In April 15, 2014 Fannie Mae released its updated selling guide. It conducted a comprehensive review of the Appraisal Requirements (B4-1) chapters of the Selling Guide. As a result of that review, new policies have been developed, current policies have been clarified, and additional guidance has been incorporated. Further, significant changes have been made. In some cases, topics and paragraphs have been re-titled and content has been reorganized with the expectation that searching for specific information will be much easier. The clarifications are a result of internal reviews, frequently asked questions, and the analysis of Uniform Appraisal Dataset (UAD) data....
In March, I once again traveled to Modesto, CA, and attended the Annual Spring Conference of the Appraisal Institute’s Northern California Chapter. This month, I will share some useful and interesting information from the presentations. The conference focuses on the California market, but many of the presenters also covered topics related to the national market. The first session was “State of the Appraisal Profession”; the speaker was Lance Coyle, MAI, and SRA who is national president-elect of the Appraisal Institute. He started by giving a brief history of the profession and pointed out that significant changes came to the profession...
One of the hottest topics right now in the appraisal world is that of non-lender work. I am probably asked a question concerning non-lender appraisals a couple of times per week, at least. “How do I do more work for attorneys?” “How do I go about marketing to home owners?” “I want to work with more real estate agents, but I am not sure how to garner their trust.” Okay, so that last one was not a question, but you get the point. Financial appraisal work through AMCs or local banks has slowed a great deal over the past few...
