Tagged: Fannie Mae

Forms Designed for Specific Purposes - Appraisal Forms Designs

March 8, 2017

Appraisal Forms Designs & Purposes

These forms were “designed” to be used for those specific purposes… Appraisers, Earlier this week, I discussed the following about some lenders requesting a type of property inspection to be completed on a form “Not Designed” for the specific property type: Original observation discussed earlier this week: Read the highlighted sentence. Read the highlighted sentence again. According to a regional bank in my area, via info from their AMC, “thousands” of Manufactured Home appraisals have been done on the 2055 form. Do you do that, just because someone – who just wants to “make a sale” – tells you to...

AMC / Appraisal / Appraisal Management Companies / Appraisal News / Appraisers News / E&O

February 24, 2017

Baby or Bath Water? And Is it Time to Take Back USPAP?

About half of AICPA members don’t believe in USPAP… When I first heard that “they” were trying to do away with the Appraisal Practices Board (APB) of the Appraisal Foundation (TAF), I tried to keep an open mind. I also wondered who “they” are. Did the Appraisal Institute (AI) finally get a sympathetic ear in Congress? Was it preemptive action by the Board of Trustees in anticipation of budget cuts by the new administration? By the way, what does the APB do? I certainly had it wrong. I thought they helped develop the Advisory Opinions (AOs)! To be candid the...

AGA / AI / American Society of Appraisers / APB / Appraisal / Appraisal Institute

February 17, 2017

Congress, Please…No More Cash for FNMA Clunkers!

Congress, cut FNMA loose from conservatorship and let them sink or swim… Every day I tend to agree more and more that we are facing an uphill battle against corporate America. Then I remember that as a former Marine, I’m supposed to be ‘ok’ with uphill battles. We make do with what we have, not necessarily what we want or need. Add to this most, if not all of our Congress from both Senate and House. Some isolated exceptions but most either don’t care or encourage the weaknesses in the financial system for their own gain. There is a reason...

AGA / AMC / APB / Appraisal / Appraisal Management Companies / Appraisal News

February 15, 2017

Death Grip on Trainees Loosening

Allowing associated trainee appraisers to complete unsupervised inspections… Appraisers, and others, A ‘significantly large’ nationwide AMC has notified it’s vendor appraisers that certain lenders contracted with this AMC will now accept appraisal reports signed by properly trained (and presumed properly approved by the State) Trainees as the ‘Appraiser.’ This follows the Jan. 31, 2017 FNMA announcement that they will accept reports signed by Trainees. So far, I have not seen any similar announcement from FrMAC, FHA, VA, or USDA, or any other specific lender. The AMC’s message to their appraiser panel is below. NOTE: This memo says the Trainee is...

AMC / Appraisal / Appraisal Management Companies / Appraisal News / Appraisers News / Fannie Mae - Freddie Mac

February 6, 2017

Rating Number Game Threatening Appraiser Independence

CU rating number magically moved lower on the scale… Appraisers, While it’s presently a tad bit slow for order volume, this is a good time to evaluate a potentially troubling item instituted by Fannie Mae in conjunction with their Collateral Underwriter (CU) review process for appraisal reports. This has the ability to be abused by lenders and AMC’s. Hope you will take time to peruse this message and the podcasts. Unfortunately, we need to get a bit deep into the weeds here so that you get a grasp on potential challenges some ‘intended users’ may have with your reports. I...

AMC / Appraisal / Appraisal Management Companies / Appraisal News / Appraisers News / Collateral Underwriter

January 25, 2017

Life After Dodd-Frank

Do the agencies’ appraisal regulations apply to FHA, VA… Republican control of Washington DC will mean one of two things: A scaling back of Dodd-Frank, or The elimination of Dodd-Frank Like it or not, one of these two scenarios will play itself out in 2017 or 2018. What about AMCs? The AMC Final Rule was deemed that…the registration and supervision of AMCs is voluntary, and that a State may elect not to establish such a program for any reason, including if its resources do not support such a program. Will the states walk away from AMC regulation? Perhaps not all, but definitely some states will either bypass the...

AMC / Appraisal / Appraisal Management Companies / Appraisal News / Appraisal Organizations / Appraisers News

November 28, 2016

Conforming Loan Limits to Be Raised

FHFA raises conforming loan limits for mortgages acquired by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Appraisers, The announcement by Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) on November 23, 2016 may affect your fee structure if your fees are higher for loans above the upper limit for home sale prices for a standard mortgage loan, so called conforming loan. When mortgage loans are for amounts higher than the conforming limit, the loans are termed “Jumbo” loans. This is not the same as basing appraisal fees on APPRAISED values. As a general statement, Jumbo loans are for homes with excessive characteristics – considered ‘complex’...

Appraisal / Appraisal News / Appraisers News / Fannie Mae - Freddie Mac / Federal Housing Finance Agency / FHFA

November 14, 2016

Freddie Mac Criminal Aspects of Its Appraisal Free Mortgages

Freddie Mac is opening itself up to over 150,000± potential individual lawsuits… This is a response from Mike Ford to Kenneth Harney’s article, “Freddie Mac planning appraisal-free mortgages”. I represent the American Guild of Appraisers, #44OPEIU, AFL-CIO, and the real estate appraisal-related consumer and taxpayer interests of our more than fifteen million± AFL-CIO members, retirees and their families. I’m prompted to write this open letter regarding your recent well written & researched article, titled “Freddie Mac planning appraisal free mortgages”. Regrettably, it was too brief to cover several additional critical aspects of the issue, but I assume the Chicago Tribune’s...

ACI / AGA / AMC / Appraisal / Appraisal Management Companies / Appraisal News

Property Inspection Waiver: Fannie Mae Offering to Waive Appraisals

October 26, 2016

Fannie Mae Waiving Appraisals

Property Inspection Waiver, getting back to the old days of fogging a mirror… Appraisers, Effective 12/10/16, FNMA will have a new program in place which will allow LENDERS to waive appraisals on certain refi’s, if it is offered through the automated Desktop Underwriter (DU) loan documentation process. See the attached PDF. Key points from the PDF (emphasis mine): Property inspection waiver (PIW) is an offer to waive the appraisal for certain refinance transactions. Property Inspection Waiver offers are issued through Desktop Underwriter® (DU®) using Fannie Mae’s database of more than 20 million appraisal reports in combination with proprietary analytics from...

Appraisal / Appraisal News / Appraisers News / Automated Valuation Models / AVM / Collateral Underwriter

September 26, 2016

UAD Rating Absolute vs. Relative

Where did those rating words come from? Why is it so many appraisers have trouble with UAD and the CU (Collateral Underwriter), and how to apply the Quality and Condition rating between the Subject and Comps? Not long after the UAD was implemented/mandated by FNMA (in 2011), and then the CU evaluation system came along, FNMA began discovering that many appraisers were improperly Rating the comps Quality and Condition AGAINST the Subject in the grid. And they began telling appraisers what they were finding. FNMA also discovered, and revealed, that many appraisers were using the same Comps over and over...

Appraisal / Appraisal News / Appraisers News / Collateral Underwriter / CU / Fannie Mae - Freddie Mac