Tagged: FNMA

Exactly How Are Property Data Collectors Professionally Trained? 17

Exactly How Are Property Data Collectors Professionally Trained?

Somebody explain to me exactly how Property Data Collectors are “professionally trained” per Fannie Mae directives. The fact is, Fannie Mae is explicitly working toward the elimination of appraisers for real property valuations. This is in their latest Selling Guide Announcement SEL-2023-02 to the Fannie Mae Selling Guide: Value acceptance + property data is a new option that utilizes property data collection by a third party who conducts interior and exterior data collection on the subject property. To ensure consumer protections, the lender must verify and be able to demonstrate that data collectors are vetted through an annual background check,...

Fannie Seeks Upstanding Invisibles for Long-Term Commitment 11

Fannie Seeks Upstanding Invisibles for Long-Term Commitment

Fannie’s big news about embracing the “invisibles,” under the pretext of helping the underserved, Fannie announced it had tweaked the knobs and dials on its impenetrable underwriting algorithm in order to fit “credit invisibles” for mortgages.  In the final scene of the 1990 mob masterpiece “Goodfellas,” wise guy Henry Hill recalls his life as he enters federal witness protection. “It was easy to disappear. My house was in my mother-in-law’s name. My cars were registered to my wife. My Social Security card and driver’s license were phony. I never voted. I never paid taxes. My birth certificate and my arrest...

Vote With Your Wallet. We Can’t Boycott the AMC Industry Twice 17

Vote With Your Wallet. We Can’t Boycott the AMC Industry Twice

Vote with your wallet. Vote with your feet. Vote with your time. Vote with your patronage. Vote with your clicks. Sorry to inform those who are seeking someone else to bail them out of this continued blatant abuse of power and ongoing racketeering enterprise known as Appraisal Management Companies (AMCs). We can’t boycott the AMC industry twice. It’s your turn now. And that’s the rub, it’s our industry, not some other groups industry. Without appraisers, there is no valuation services industry. The appraisal management groups presence is irrelevant unless appraisers choose to make the AMCs relevant with patronage. Each appraisers...

Why Are Fannie, Freddie Peddling Exotic Junk-Rated Risk Swaps? 5

Why Are Fannie, Freddie Peddling Exotic Junk-Rated Risk Swaps?

Meanwhile, cratering home prices are eroding demand for the junk-rated credit transfers.  As mortgage giants Fannie and Freddie bend the knee to their political overlords, they securitize ever riskier loans. It’s a sign of the times. But while no one was looking, the twins – who wield the full faith and credit of the U.S. government – began quietly offloading this surplus risk in the form of so-called “credit-risk transfers.” The U.S. taxpayer should be worried. As the public learned in 2008 with AIG’s credit-default swaps, hidden risk injected into the financial system doesn’t stay hidden for long. The twins,...

Smartphone Measuring Technology 15

Smartphone Measuring Technology

This new measuring technology claims the software to be ANSI compliant.  Appraisers, over the past couple of years, there have been lively discussions on forums, Facebook groups, at conferences, etc., about a ‘new’ technology which allows a ‘phone holder’ to measure a structure, with that technology providing a “Sketch” or “Floor Plan” of that structure. Some of you may have heard about one of the originating companies, Matterport, which some real estate agents/brokers use to generate virtual 3D interior diagrams and videos used in property marketing. Smartphone measuring technology evolved from that. Until recently, I and others did not understand...

DEI Bosses at Financial Institutions Have a Problem - Diversity 12

Top DEI Bosses Have a Problem – Diversity

The ranks of the new DEI bosses at the financial institutions are no more diverse than the appraisers their institutions see as the enemy. If the lack of diversity of appraisers is inherently bad, how could the same not be said for the DEI bosses?  A full 93 percent of U.S. birdwatchers are white. Just 4 percent are African-American and a paltry 1 percent are Asian-American. Just 5 percent are Hispanic (which includes both blacks and whites). This was according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as reported in National Geographic a number of years ago. Another study found...

Appraisers Are Historians...Tracking the Motivations of the Moment 19

Appraisers Are Historians

It is gratifying when appraisers are correct, and the AVMs burn; unless you invested in their stocks.  I mean no disrespect to the modelers of the Automated Valuation Models (AVMs) or to Zillow for relying on their AVMs. As an appraiser since the 80s, I have yet to find a computer that can tell me if I want vanilla or chocolate ice cream. Does the buyer want more acres, or less grass to cut? I will admit that a raised ranch, a two story farm house, a colonial, a split level, and a Dutch colonial can all sell for the...

The Appraisal Problem and Undue Diligence 8

The Appraisal Problem

Gone are the days of hiring a professional appraiser to solve the appraisal problem. For decades lenders have taken on the responsibility of shaping the appraisal process and dictating the solutions to the appraisal problem. Savvy appraisers push back in a positive fashion to try and enable the lender to receive a report that not only meets USPAP, FIRREA, Fannie Mae, or HUD/FHA/VA an UAD reporting guidelines, but also provides the client with a report that is clear, concise, accurate and not misleading. An appraisal report can be on time, have all the boxes checked, no inconsistencies, meet all the...

Fannie Mae Bullies Lenders, Ensnares Appraisers in Farcical Probes 13

FNMA Ensnares Appraisers in Farcical Probes

You feel like Fannie Mae is simply trying to get rid of appraisers. A lot of appraisers feel that way… “Even amidst tragedy there is sometimes farce,” wrote author Daniel Prokop. Unleashing tragedy and farce in equal measure, mortgage giant Fannie Mae is using its muscle to coerce lenders to repurchase early COVID-era loans. Fannie apparently deems them now too risky for its portfolio. As a ploy, say observers, Fannie is generating automated appraisals similar to Zillow’s “Zestimates” and using them to undermine appraised values in loans it wants to offload. Fannie’s automated system then sends unsigned boilerplate complaints to...

Appraisers Should Voluntarily Follow ANSI for Desktops 56

Appraisers Should Voluntarily Follow ANSI for Desktops?

Can someone explain how we should voluntarily follow ANSI standard on desktop appraisals? Appraisers, Fannie Mae has released a new FAQ document to help you understand how to implement and adhere to their ANSI measuring and reporting requirement. See the PDF document below or here. Normally these documents are informative and provide good information. But in reading this one, I’m particularly puzzled by Q13, and I’m not sure if that’s a bad omen or not! Q13 discusses DESKTOP appraisals, for which NO adherence to ANSI is required. It says so, right there, in Q13. And most of us now know...

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