The one single thing I believe to be missing is any consideration of an oft-repeated phrase at TAF & other public meetings by the Executive Director of the Appraisal Sub Committee (Mr. Jim Park ASC) that “Federal regulators see no daylight between the lender and their AMC agents.” It is the lender that is held accountable for the actions or omissions of their AMC agents.

I can see where that still leaves room for the lender to sue the AMC for ‘failing to assure delivery of USPAP compliant appraisals’. Presumably a violation of their contractual agreements.

My question is WHY when a lender sues their own AMC for breach of contract is there not also an accompanying federal claim against the lender for failing to assure that the appraisal used in their lending decision was USPAP compliant? The lender has no right to delegate or sidestep responsibility. Only the tasks. Provided the results are federally compliant.

The very complaint by the lender that their agent failed to live up to a contract is an admission that the lender also delivered a deficient product (if a correspondent) or used a deficient product in their decisions.

If ASC and other regulatory agencies truly see no daylight between the AMC and the lender; and no ‘plausible deniability’ in lender claims or assertions that it wasn’t their fault, then why are we not seeing concurrent claims by federal regulators against the lenders every single time one of these cases arises? Their simple filing against the AMC is an admission of violating federal lending oversight requirements.

FIRREA is broken. State enforcement has become arbitrary and inconsistent. As appraisers, we only see the appraisal side of regulatory deficiencies. Imagine that for every deficiency we see, that there are ten others on the lending side. Dodd-Frank has never been endorsed by lenders. The “feds” themselves (via FTC Lawsuit & Louisiana) have prevented the passage of implementing regulations for reasonable and customary fee provisions.

AMCs, Lenders, FNMA, FreddieMac, and Wall Street itself are laughing all the way to their own “banks”. In the interim investors in bulk portfolios and REITS continue to be fleeced on a daily basis.

FIRREA is DEAD.

Garth, just ignore grading completely, place operational priority on your best most reliable client or two. On the assignment side they have nifty checkbox criteria tools so they can find appraisers they like, have auto population with varied criteria they can change on the fly, etc. All anyone needs to do is call the desk managers and that’s how appraisers climb up or drop off of the effective assignment lists instantly. The tech systems are not about efficiency or bettering the process, they are about fulfilling the lenders wishes for more control of the appraisers methodology, processes, fees, turn times, and business modeling.

I’ve identified your primary problem. “the amc”. As long as appraisers continue to accept amc orders, there is no room for those appraisers to complain. You personally are keeping the amc’s in business by accepting their orders. Think about it. Keep bidding I suppose, I only accept direct assignment orders with up front fees, I refuse to bid or play with pick me up orphan orders the discounters already passed up. I’ll find a new line of work before I go back to the amc abuses. Market and land direct assignment clients. It’s actually rather easy to get away from them. It’s rich and necessary to talk about the constant and expected abuses of the amc industry whenever they are brought up. Parasites. If their service was worth anything, they’d bill for their services separately.

***The only TWO questions of AMC concern: How LOW How QUICK???

This has been THE case over-&-Over & OVER again with A very large AMC, one that covers the entire nation THAT does not have a CLUE how to “review” “quality control” an appraisal service. The BEST they have to offer: the ordering software which provides the acceptable Fee. The AMC indicated “they” had set the Fee based upon the area. (Take it or Leave it situation.)

***Early Last Week: I get a correction -revision from THE AMC. Reason: provided a Cost-to-Cure for the Repairs. For the NEXT 5 days & includes 3 Past the Due Date for the Lender: TRUE DELAY EQUALS: “The AMC could NOT answer the Appraiser’s response: “”Please send Reasons & where in the Report: for the requested Cost-to-Cure on an “as is” no cure-cost needed Report.”” (((Stupid STIP & so stupid IT did not even exist.)))

YEP they really know “how the manage”. Seems it went through 3 tiers of “review” without actually “anyone really really” reviewing. Seems just kept passing it around to the Next Dead End. Boy -o-boy thats really GREAT for “MY” rating!!!

*** One More: A young appraiser stated the other day: “I didn’t know that an order could be placed WITHOUT USE OF an AMC!” Now isn’t that NEWS worthy OR not. Big GOV’ crushed it WHEN they didn’t CORRECT the misinterpretation YEARS ago: of THIRD PARTY uses.

This Post is a BIT off of subject Thread: So, oooops for that.

Most use Mercury Network or Xome which means excessive service charges. With no Trust Fund rules…. many Mortgage Bank Lenders are using borrower paid Appraisal Fees to pay the lenders overhead. It’s like a short term interest free loan to fund their working capital. Submit an appraisal fee invoice near the end of the month and you will be put to the end of the line and paid LAST or most likely pushed to the next bi monthly payment date.

Sure miss the COD good ole days

You may have that relationship backwards. The amc knowingly facilitates the pressure placed on appraisers. Define which entity makes the request first because a lot of amc’s perform those actions in house. Make the lender upset, replace them. Make the amc upset, lose all the lenders at once and get placed on do not use lists for all the lenders they may work with in the future. Amc’s, the long arm of the lender.

Hypothetically, under these conditions the article describes, one may actually benefit from the additional layer. However as the entirety of the amc’s operational expense is taken solely by way of driving the appraisers fee down, driving the consumers fee up, profiting from the difference, all losses the amc experience inevitably become the appraisers loses as well. Clever lenders because that has been the game all along, pass it down. Have you ever wondered why when trying to strike a consistently fair deal with amc’s, that you just can’t win?

Amc’s have always sought to redirect the consequences of their indiscretion. Read the onboarding documents carefully because unless an appraiser is in a state which prohibits indemnity clauses, a great many amc’s seek to pass these liabilities to the appraiser and their insurer ahead of time. Great article. Insurers may consider reviewing those amc onboarding documents alongside any claim because if the appraiser signed their rights away, they have no one to blame but themselves. It may be difficult to squeeze the appraiser for any substantial settlement though, as the amc pilfered their earnings capacity ahead of time. Fractional reserve capital extension is the new staple so the gravity of repurchase demands continues to increase. All this is just getting started.

Use mozilla firefox or other browsers capabilities. Highlight the term in question. R click, select, search ‘x’ on your preset browser of research choice. Benefits of using a real desktop pc. Mobile device capabilities remain rudimentary at best. On top of Ublock, ad block plus, there is also a new add on called privacy badger, and highlight while you type spell checker which does not auto correct for you and does not use any ai. All worthwhile reasons to use firefox instead. You can access this website without needing a login, via an internet address, skip the data tracking and facebook if you want.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_hand

He was a Scottish economist, he’s usually known for “an inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations” and known as the father of economics/father of capitalism. Basically….the economy (at any level) will always seek out equilibrium. It just takes time. There is a price for an appraisal that should be paid, too cheap and you get a shit report, too much and other people will fill in. Right now, from my vantage point, this hybrid bull is excessively pushing the pendulum to too cheap. Bad things will happen/economic, downturn, appraisers got blamed last time. Hopefully people learned. The the super spark notes version.

Who is Adam Smith, pray tell? Sorry, you lost me….

Every AMC on the planet should be sued for EXTORTION

The concept is new (AMCs) and I think as we progress, the poorly written reports (especially in the next downturn) will lead back to the AMCs. After the last downturn, hopefully, appraisers started protecting themselves vis a vis EA and HC; if that language is in the report, and the AMC couldn’t care less….E&O will protect appraisers (assuming they did their due diligence), bad appraisers will be blown out/will have already left the field, and the AMC will be on the hook. Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand always resets/equalizes out, it just takes some time.