Not Such a Quiet Week

Treasure Valley No Longer Accepting AMC Invoices, PIW & ACE ProgramsFor a quiet Holiday Week and the first week of school for many localities, many things to report: VaCAP has learned Treasure Valley Factors is no longer accepting “Managed Appraisal Services Inc.“ invoices.

Treasure Valley Factoring has been highly promoted by Phil Crawford and many appraisers utilize their service. VaCAP does not know the reasoning behind their decision, but we can only assume it is risk based, or this AMC simply is not paying. This could be a sign of things to come. Be mindful of your receivables and take early action the first sign of trouble. It is a business decision if you grant credit to anyone and it is also a business decision on what those terms would be.

Wells Fargo is in the spot light again. More fraudulent activities discovered. This time for overcharging borrowers mortgage fees for delays caused by their own inefficiencies. Why have no criminal charges been made against anyone at Wells Fargo? See the story on USA Today here.

Texas Appraisers need your help. Several appraisers have joined together to start a GoFundMe page to help appraisers in Texas impacted by Harvey. AppraisersBlogs has all the details. See the details here.

Be prepared as it appears hurricane season is in full force, Irma, Jose, Katia, all named storms on the radar for the next week. Remember to be prepared for anything that could possibly happen.

Opposition to Fannie and Freddie PIW and ACE programs growing: VaCAP has learned many industry professionals have expressed concern over these programs. Letters to the FHFA have been ongoing. The Appraisal Foundation sent a letter earlier this summer and more recently The Appraisal Institute has reached out to the state coalitions, other national organizations and state appraiser boards for a joint letter of unity on the matter.

There are many predictions of a market downturn in the very near future. Taking steps and remove one of the most valuable tools in assessing risk makes no sense at all and is just irresponsible. Last week VaCAP asked appraisers to start a conversation with agents about the programs. Recommend the borrowers get an appraisal on their own if the lender is not doing it. It is about consumer protection and liability of the agent.

VaCAP Board
Image credit flickr - Tim Pierce
VaCAP Board

VaCAP Board

Coalition of individual appraisers working together to unite, promote and protect the collective interests of all appraisal professionals in Virginia; to promote needed changes in laws, rules, regulations, policies and standards affecting all appraisers in Virginia; to observe and report the actions of regulatory, legislative, oversight, and standards-setting entities of the Commonwealth.

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10 Responses

  1. Trust Real Estate Appraisal on Facebook Trust Real Estate Appraisal on Facebook says:

    Follow the money and your questions will be answered.

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  2. VaCAP – my understanding is AMS are alternatives to AMCs so speculative stated cause why Treasure Valley is no longer accepting payments from them seems implausible. More likely it has to do with increased ability of ‘clients’ to create accounting charge-backs or legal claw back of all or part of fees already paid.

    I don’t think the issue is concern over Treasure Valley so much as AMS’s. AMCs (evil as most are) learned long ago how to minimize dissatisfied customer charge backs and credit card ‘dispute’ denials after the owner received results they were unhappy with. You obtain a specific signed no refund charge agreement from the payer up front. The stronger it is worded regarding no guarantees of value; timeliness; rate locks or portability and that NO protest is authorized the less likelihood of non payment. Like the old field collection days – you do NOT deliver the product until the check is cleared. If this flaw in the AMS system is not resolved ASAP the entire process is doomed to failure. If I thought for a second that Mercury (or any system) could claw back a fee or offset it against other services, Id never take an order from their system. (I don’t anyway – but that’s coincidence).

    RE Wells Fargo, or the gift to media that keeps on giving. The most recent charge has my BS antennae tingling. A security guard in Vegas is now suing because he lost rate lock due to delay and had to pay $287 to extend it? ..OK, possible – even plausible until I hear it was for a 5.875% rate! I bought my property in 2009 at 4 1/2% APR, 30 year fixed. I dont recall rates going up above that at all during the interim. In fact I even refinanced for a an lower rate 4 or five years ago. So when was this guy supposed to have suffered his loss? A couple weeks after this type of problem was posited in a news broadcast.

    Great news bits though! Keep up the great work. Mike

    Possible – ‘maybe’ but skepticism abounds…and y’all KNOW I’m know fan of the Wells Fargo Highwaymen.

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  3. Baggins Baggins says:

    Well the answer to government regulatory issues are right there, the revolving door.  In other countries the lobbying efforts major corporations engage with, are otherwise known as bribery, collusion, and racketeering.  They used to be recognized as such in the USA, prior to legislation and alterations of law.  Guess who wrote those laws…  Yep, you guessed it.  Want an immediate solution?  Fines based on income.  Ron argues against FDIC insurance and that seems to make more sense as time goes by.  The disclosures of the day will pale in comparison to a true detailed fed audit, disclosing 100 years of back patting.  That audit might take a while so the sooner we can begin the better.

    Thanks for the good work.  If waivers come forth that will result in an increase in difficult work, decrease in sustainable simple work order volume, and a much higher fee.  We can all blame the GSE’s in unison when another half of the industry quits or washes out and fees double or even triple in the near future.  Got to look at the bright side.  Cheers.

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    • Baggins-“Ron” is simply wrong re FDIC. I appreciate and in some ways may agree with some basic Libertarian views but not this. If ‘Ron’  had a pragmatic national affairs and international policy solution he could have been more successful. Same with FDIC.

      Without FDIC another 1929 stock market collapse and run on the banks would be a virtual guarantee. Its nice to take a philosophically purist perspective and say let all investors including Joe the Plumber-depositor take their own chances, but the spill over effect is just too catastrophic to consider as acceptable to any degree.

      TARP I; II and QE in all it’s versions may have been the biggest theft of taxpayer money in history, but eliminating FDIC would be economic suicide.

      Like nuclear energy and bombs, the genie is out of the bottle and we can’t go back to the early 20th or late 19th centuries in our thinking. The Gold standard is dead.

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      • Baggins Baggins says:

        Well the gold standard ain’t dead for Ron. He bought at 35. The absence of the gold standard is the mechanism of fiat. FDIC encourages risky lending by distributing risk unfairly and subsequently that many more people live in dangerous climates they could otherwise not afford the insurance on. Ron is painted as an idealist and puritist but in reality he’s the most savvy economic analyst not beholden to any biased interest in this entire country. “In Ron We Trust.” His polices are sound. Our economic regulatory structure is not. I would agree to disagree except when you give an inch on liberty they take a mile. As a little fish I just pontificate, and shove the silver coins somewhere safe out of reach of both government and lenders.

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  4. Baggins Baggins says:

    Treasure valley. Here is their website.

    Speculations abound. Most likely though they’re dealing with usury caps, self imposed or government imposed does not matter. The risk vs reward index must have tipped and they therefore will not include this much higher risk category of customers any longer. Probably because of an interest cap and the amc entities represent a much higher risk category of lended monies. What do you suppose the proper interest rate would be for advance pay from companies which are apt to fall into the category of ponzi schemes? Whether they fall into that category intentionally or not is immaterial the the rate a lender would fairly charge to cover their risk. It’s just another niche payday lending outfit. Some call it interest, others call it a usury.

    The history of usury fees is quite intriguing, I encourage people to look into it. Are those appraisers borrowing their own income ahead of time for moral and just reasons? How do the appraisers justify to themselves the acceptance of such usury fees? Usury arguments are indeed fascinating that way and appraisers of all segments of persons should know more about this. One of my recent interests is understanding usury and I’m going to study on the invisible hand next. Trying to keep up with Ron you know. Sheds a whole new light on lending, war, and our current society.

    On Usury

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    • Usury rate in USA was 12% when I worked in Finance. Mortgage rates ranged from 7% to 7 1/2%; secured car loans ran around 9% as an APR and unsecured signature loans ran at 12% (then the limit). Then we had the interest rate spikes under Carter and 12% usury rate was removed to make consumer funds available…Home interest rates spiked up to 13% and higher in some instances. but somehow Congress never got around to reinstating it (usury laws) when rates dropped back down again circa ’84. Interest rates on credit cards routinely climbed to 19%…and now high risk unsecured or partial cash secured credit card rates AND car loans can routinely be charged at 29%.

      Rates that are common today used to be considered loan sharking. People went to jail for charging that much. There’s also some Biblical discussion on loan and interest rate limits.

      Baggins-Like I said I always found Ron’s (& Libertarian) views ‘interesting’ but they’ve never come up with a viable national policy of any kind, that functions well for the world we live in vs the one they think we should live in. The genie is out of the bottle.

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  5. Baggins Baggins says:

    Mike you continue to amaze with a solid experience base very few could begin to compete with. Mr Paul reiterates this common objection quite often. As he likes to say, liberty and a return to more strict constitutional government may not happen today or tomorrow, but the mis management of these major systems will give us all a greater opportunity to affect positive change, hopefully in our life times. The hook that draws crowds towards these opinions is the notion that it’s rather obvious many of these systems are either grossly mis managed or plainly unsustainable. Persons in support of We The People are often more on the same page than not, despite these differences of opinion. Cheers.

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  6. Leroy Thomas III on Facebook Leroy Thomas III on Facebook says:

    Who wouldn’t want to do business with a AMC? ?

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  7. VaCAP Board VaCAP Board says:

    We have had many misunderstand the information concerning Managed Appraisal Services and Treasure Valley Factors and we need to clarify the information.

    Managed Appraisal Service, Inc. is an Appraisal Management Company located in Horsham, PA. It is this company’s invoices Treasure Valley Factors is no longer accepting. Treasure Valley Factors is still accepting invoices from other Appraisal Management Companies. Treasure Valley Factors reviews each company individually and makes decisions based on their own risk assessment criteria.

    We apologize if the wording of our post was unclear.

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Not Such a Quiet Week

by VaCAP Board time to read: 1 min
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