Desiree Mehbod - Certified Real Estate Appraiser https://appraisersblogs.com/author/desiree/ Appraisal News and Tips for Real Estate Appraisers Sat, 17 Oct 2026 05:31:46 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1.3 https://i0.wp.com/appraisersblogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/ABfavicon.png?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 Desiree Mehbod - Certified Real Estate Appraiser https://appraisersblogs.com/author/desiree/ 32 32 52046035 The MLS Interior Photo Blackout & UAD 3.6 https://appraisersblogs.com/the-mls-interior-photo-blackout-uad-3-6/ https://appraisersblogs.com/the-mls-interior-photo-blackout-uad-3-6/#comments Fri, 16 Oct 2026 12:30:32 +0000 https://appraisersblogs.com/?p=35225 The rollout of UAD 3.6 creates a massive data clash, leaving us completely unable to verify comparable sales just as Bright MLS launches new controls to hide interior photos and property details. A home inspector recently posted a video on Facebook that highlights exactly what our profession is facing with data privacy. He was sounding the alarm to consumers and professionals, warning them about how cloud reporting software silently piped private property defect data straight to corporate risk pools. It is a message that resonates deeply with appraisers, who have been screaming into the void about data exploitation for years....

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]]> https://appraisersblogs.com/the-mls-interior-photo-blackout-uad-3-6/feed/ 23 35225 The Zach Simas Coercion Campaign https://appraisersblogs.com/the-zach-simas-coercion-campaign/ https://appraisersblogs.com/the-zach-simas-coercion-campaign/#comments Thu, 15 Oct 2026 12:30:00 +0000 https://appraisersblogs.com/?p=35211 A double standard inside the appraisal industry has been exposed yet again. Fellow appraiser Zach Simas recently detailed a blatant attempt at corporate coercion by Class Valuation, commonly nicknamed “ClassLess” across our profession. While the national appraisal management company skates through multiple federal lawsuits and major compliance scandals, the independent appraiser who stood his ground on ethics is the one facing a state board investigation. This reality lays bare a deeply broken system where middlemen hold the power and the boots on the ground carry all the risk. The trouble began when Zach completed an FHA report for Class Valuation...

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]]> https://appraisersblogs.com/the-zach-simas-coercion-campaign/feed/ 14 35211 UAD 3.6 and the Danger of Corporate Pragmatism https://appraisersblogs.com/uad-3-6-and-the-danger-of-corporate-pragmatism/ https://appraisersblogs.com/uad-3-6-and-the-danger-of-corporate-pragmatism/#comments Wed, 14 Oct 2026 12:30:30 +0000 https://appraisersblogs.com/?p=35186 The rollout of the new UAD 3.6 framework has triggered a major wave of compliance literature, and a perfect example is a recent article by Woody Fincham at Valuation Nation, titled “Certification 25: What’s the Real Risk to the Appraiser?”. In his piece, Woody sets aside the rhetoric and lists my AppraisersBlogs article regarding our legal defenses under this dataset as a citation reference at the end of his post. While he acknowledges the existence of this perspective, his broader argument claims that the legal risks of signing Certification 25 are low, the threat of regulatory discipline is minimal, and...

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]]> https://appraisersblogs.com/uad-3-6-and-the-danger-of-corporate-pragmatism/feed/ 61 35186 Our Metrics, Their Millions: Exposing the Backdoor Data Rush https://appraisersblogs.com/our-metrics-their-millions-exposing-the-backdoor-data-rush/ https://appraisersblogs.com/our-metrics-their-millions-exposing-the-backdoor-data-rush/#comments Tue, 13 Oct 2026 12:30:21 +0000 https://appraisersblogs.com/?p=35192 If you still think the corporate panic over structural data is just a theoretical debate about software licensing, a tech startup named Arloh just blew the entire script wide open. They have been running public marketing campaigns targeting small title, escrow, and appraisal firms with a staggering proposition: “Your old records could be worth millions.” One of their primary advertisements explicitly brags that a tiny 37-person title and escrow shop just received a ~$967,000 estimate simply for licensing their historical data archive for artificial intelligence training models. Let that dollar figure sink in for a second. Nearly one million dollars...

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]]> https://appraisersblogs.com/our-metrics-their-millions-exposing-the-backdoor-data-rush/feed/ 15 35192 Inspectors Blocked the Door, Appraisers Handed Over the Keys https://appraisersblogs.com/inspectors-blocked-the-door-appraisers-handed-over-the-keys/ https://appraisersblogs.com/inspectors-blocked-the-door-appraisers-handed-over-the-keys/#comments Mon, 12 Oct 2026 12:30:11 +0000 https://appraisersblogs.com/?p=35156 A fellow appraiser dropped a direct message in my inbox with a link to home inspector Preston Kincaid’s Facebook video, and watching him warn the public sent a chill through me because his words mirrored the exact warnings I have been shouting about our own appraisal profession. To understand the shock, you first need to know what Spectora is and how home inspectors work. Spectora is the dominant cloud software platform used by roughly 7,000 independent home inspectors across the country to draft, format, and deliver digital property inspection reports. By law and standard contract, home inspectors operate under strict...

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]]> https://appraisersblogs.com/inspectors-blocked-the-door-appraisers-handed-over-the-keys/feed/ 39 35156 UAD 3.6 Erases My Legal Defenses: Insurance Industry Agrees https://appraisersblogs.com/uad-3-6-erases-my-legal-defenses-insurance-industry-agrees/ https://appraisersblogs.com/uad-3-6-erases-my-legal-defenses-insurance-industry-agrees/#comments Thu, 08 Oct 2026 12:30:15 +0000 https://appraisersblogs.com/?p=35134 The insurance industry just verified the erasure of my legal defenses under UAD 3.6. The corporate apologists and tech insiders have spent weeks trying to downplay the Certification 25 confidentiality crisis. They’ve lined up to tell independent appraisers that the new language is just a passive weather report, a routine disclosure, or an innocent acknowledgement of a reality that has existed for many years. But the ultimate reality check just arrived from the very people who calculate risk for a living, and it completely blows the corporate defense strategy out of the water. Isaac Peck, Publisher of Working RE Magazine...

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]]> https://appraisersblogs.com/uad-3-6-erases-my-legal-defenses-insurance-industry-agrees/feed/ 38 35134 Cert 25 Dilemma: TAF Abdicates Its Role as Ethics Arbiter https://appraisersblogs.com/cert-25-dilemma-taf-abdicates-its-role-as-ethics-arbiter/ https://appraisersblogs.com/cert-25-dilemma-taf-abdicates-its-role-as-ethics-arbiter/#comments Fri, 02 Oct 2026 12:30:47 +0000 https://appraisersblogs.com/?p=35120 We finally have a direct written response from The Appraisal Foundation regarding the Cert 25 confidentiality crisis and it is a masterclass in bureaucratic buck passing. A peer recently contacted TAF to ask how appraisers can remain compliant with the USPAP Ethics Rule while signing a form that opens the floodgates for data distribution. TAF basically hid under their desks. They claimed they cannot give legal advice and told us that questions about Cert 25 are best suited for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac since they built the form. Then they dropped this standard canned line to try and brush...

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]]> https://appraisersblogs.com/cert-25-dilemma-taf-abdicates-its-role-as-ethics-arbiter/feed/ 84 35120 Certification 25 and the Quiet Breach of Appraiser Confidentiality https://appraisersblogs.com/certification-25-and-the-quiet-breach-of-appraiser-confidentiality/ https://appraisersblogs.com/certification-25-and-the-quiet-breach-of-appraiser-confidentiality/#comments Tue, 29 Sep 2026 12:30:38 +0000 https://appraisersblogs.com/?p=35060 Certification 25 made me realize that my refusal to participate in UAD 3.6 was justified long before I even knew what was buried in its certifications. A peer sent me Phil Crawford’s new podcast episode this morning, and I opened it without thinking much of it because I had assumed his retirement from the show meant he was done weighing in on industry developments. I have been following the news and the chatter around 3.6, but I haven’t been preparing for it. I have not taken any UAD 3.6 classes, have not attended any seminars, have not tested the form,...

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]]> https://appraisersblogs.com/certification-25-and-the-quiet-breach-of-appraiser-confidentiality/feed/ 67 35060 When Solidifi Tried to Silence Samnick https://appraisersblogs.com/when-solidifi-tried-to-silence-samnick/ https://appraisersblogs.com/when-solidifi-tried-to-silence-samnick/#comments Tue, 11 Aug 2026 12:30:26 +0000 https://appraisersblogs.com/?p=33599 David Samnick has spent years warning that the AMC model would eventually expose its own contradictions. He is a Georgia appraiser, a long time critic of AMC practices, and the author of Mein Comp: The Last Appraiser, a book that traces how independence in the profession was eroded year after year by expanding corporate control. Samnick walked away from mortgage work two years ago, stopped accepting AMC assignments entirely, and now works only for private clients. He has never completed an assignment for Clear Capital. Yet despite having no active relationship with Solidifi and no reliance on their panel, he...

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]]> https://appraisersblogs.com/when-solidifi-tried-to-silence-samnick/feed/ 44 33599 Honoring Jan Bellas, Our Greatest Advocate https://appraisersblogs.com/honoring-jan-bellas-our-greatest-advocate/ https://appraisersblogs.com/honoring-jan-bellas-our-greatest-advocate/#comments Mon, 13 Jul 2026 12:30:43 +0000 https://appraisersblogs.com/?p=33506 Jan Bellas passed away on July 7, 2026, and those of us in the appraisal profession who knew her are grieving someone who was far more than a colleague. Jan wasn’t an appraiser, yet she carried the weight of our struggles as if they were her own. She understood the pressures, the unfair treatment, the isolation, the frustration, and the constant fight to be heard, and she absorbed all of it. She had a way of making appraisers feel lighter the moment they called her. You could pick up the phone in the middle of a crisis, whether it was...

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]]> https://appraisersblogs.com/honoring-jan-bellas-our-greatest-advocate/feed/ 29 33506 Systemic Failures in FHA Appraisal and Loan Review https://appraisersblogs.com/systemic-failures-in-fha-appraisal-n-loan-review/ https://appraisersblogs.com/systemic-failures-in-fha-appraisal-n-loan-review/#comments Mon, 18 May 2026 12:30:44 +0000 https://appraisersblogs.com/?p=33401 This case exposed the cracks in an FHA system where failures by the lender, the AMC, and the review process aligned in ways that no borrower could have anticipated. It shows how easily an appraisal error can escalate when every safeguard designed to prevent harm breaks down at the same time. When the first article about this case ran on July 15, 2024, it already raised serious concerns about how an FHA appraisal could miss something as basic as the type of water and sewer service. What has emerged since then paints a much larger picture, one that shows how...

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]]> https://appraisersblogs.com/systemic-failures-in-fha-appraisal-n-loan-review/feed/ 41 33401 Bias Accusation Collapses as HUD Clears the Appraiser https://appraisersblogs.com/bias-accusation-collapses-as-hud-clears-the-appraiser/ https://appraisersblogs.com/bias-accusation-collapses-as-hud-clears-the-appraiser/#comments Wed, 06 May 2026 12:30:26 +0000 https://appraisersblogs.com/?p=33379 HUD just confirmed what the appraisal showed from day one: the accusation never had a pulse.  If you read the original article about Steve Orlowski, the Illinois appraiser dragged through a multi year circus over a baseless bias allegation, you probably walked away thinking that surely this nightmare had to end at some point. The state had already taken its shot, the facts were already sitting in plain view, and nothing in the report supported the accusation. But as every appraiser knows, once a complaint enters the system, it tends to move forward on momentum alone, even when the foundation...

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]]> https://appraisersblogs.com/bias-accusation-collapses-as-hud-clears-the-appraiser/feed/ 51 33379 Flags Over Facts: The Road to Obsolescence https://appraisersblogs.com/flags-over-facts-the-road-2-obsolescence/ https://appraisersblogs.com/flags-over-facts-the-road-2-obsolescence/#comments Thu, 02 Apr 2026 12:30:03 +0000 https://appraisersblogs.com/?p=33309 The latest round of modernization comes wrapped in friendly language, but the flags are hard to miss if you’ve been paying attention.  For years, appraisers have been warning that the mortgage industry was slowly engineering us out of the process. We were told we were paranoid. Resistant to change. Stuck in the past. Then the newest Mortgage Credit Executive Order arrived, and the appraisal section opened with a single line that confirmed everything we’ve been saying: expand AVMs, desktops, hybrids, and AI. That’s the priority. Everything else in that section is just polite filler wrapped around a strategy to shrink...

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]]> https://appraisersblogs.com/flags-over-facts-the-road-2-obsolescence/feed/ 62 33309 From Dealerships to AMCs: Tech Fees as the New Normal https://appraisersblogs.com/from-dealerships-2-amcs-tech-fees-as-the-new-normal/ https://appraisersblogs.com/from-dealerships-2-amcs-tech-fees-as-the-new-normal/#comments Tue, 27 Jan 2026 13:30:23 +0000 https://appraisersblogs.com/?p=33228 Tech fees have spread so far and wide that even my oil change felt like a crash course in AMC logic. Last year I went to the dealership for a simple oil change. Nothing dramatic. I was prepared to drink bad waiting room coffee, scroll my phone, and leave. Instead, the service rep came out with the classic “while we had it up on the lift” routine and told me I needed new brakes. Fine. I approved the $1,200 estimate. Not fun, but expected. When the work was done, I went to pay and noticed a mysterious $60 surcharge added...

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]]> https://appraisersblogs.com/from-dealerships-2-amcs-tech-fees-as-the-new-normal/feed/ 45 33228 When Protecting Tenants Starts With Targeting Property Rights https://appraisersblogs.com/when-protecting-tenants-starts-with-targeting-property-rights/ https://appraisersblogs.com/when-protecting-tenants-starts-with-targeting-property-rights/#comments Tue, 06 Jan 2026 13:30:24 +0000 https://appraisersblogs.com/?p=33181 When officials start treating property rights like a rounding error, every appraiser in the room knows the market’s about to need a stress test. New York City has never been short on bold ideas, but Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s latest appointment to the city’s Office to Protect Tenants has managed to ignite a firestorm before even warming the chair. His pick, Cea Weaver, arrives with a resurfaced video and a digital paper trail that would make any seasoned housing professional pause. Between her past social‑media proclamations like “seize private property” and her declaration that homeownership is “a weapon of white supremacy,”...

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]]> https://appraisersblogs.com/when-protecting-tenants-starts-with-targeting-property-rights/feed/ 29 33181 “No Name” Licenses, No Accountability: From Highways to Housing https://appraisersblogs.com/no-name-licenses-no-accountability-from-highways-2-housing/ https://appraisersblogs.com/no-name-licenses-no-accountability-from-highways-2-housing/#comments Fri, 24 Oct 2025 12:30:34 +0000 https://appraisersblogs.com/?p=33124 Two fatal crashes, one in Florida and one in California, have reignited national concern over so-called “no name” commercial driver’s licenses issued to foreign nationals without lawful immigration status. According to reports, truckers and government officials are sounding the alarm. Some states are allegedly issuing CDLs without verifying full legal names, allowing individuals with unverifiable identities or even criminal records to operate 80,000-pound trucks on public roads. This is not just a transportation issue. It is a systemic warning. The same structural failures that enable “no name” CDLs are now surfacing in the real estate and mortgage industries. Property data...

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]]> https://appraisersblogs.com/no-name-licenses-no-accountability-from-highways-2-housing/feed/ 31 33124 A Review of MEIN COMP: The Last Appraiser https://appraisersblogs.com/a-review-of-mein-comp-the-last-appraiser/ https://appraisersblogs.com/a-review-of-mein-comp-the-last-appraiser/#comments Mon, 08 Sep 2025 12:30:43 +0000 https://appraisersblogs.com/?p=33054 If Orwell moonlighted as an appraiser, and Kafka had a side hustle in compliance, “MEIN COMP: The Last Appraiser” by David Samnick would be their love child. But this isn’t dystopian fantasy, it’s a forensic autopsy of a profession that was methodically dismantled while regulators smiled, and algorithms sharpened their knives. Samnick’s book is fiction the way a courtroom sketch is fiction. The names are changed, but the faces are familiar, and the tactics are real. Through a cast of fictional appraisers, each representing a phase in the slow-motion collapse of independent valuation, we witness the insertion of middlemen, the...

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]]> https://appraisersblogs.com/a-review-of-mein-comp-the-last-appraiser/feed/ 33 33054 The Appraisal Profession’s Perfect Storm: A Veteran’s Take on a Dying Craft https://appraisersblogs.com/the-appraisal-professions-perfect-storm-a-veterans-take-on-a-dying-craft/ https://appraisersblogs.com/the-appraisal-professions-perfect-storm-a-veterans-take-on-a-dying-craft/#comments Fri, 02 May 2025 12:30:49 +0000 https://appraisersblogs.com/?p=32754 The new UAD form, the AMC fee gouging, the waivers, the false bias claims. It’s a perfect storm of assaults.  I’ve been an appraiser since 1993, back when fax machines were cutting-edge and the internet was a clunky novelty. Over three decades, I’ve seen this profession weather storms, economic crashes, regulatory overhauls, you name it. But what’s happening now? It’s not a storm; it’s a tsunami. Our industry is hemorrhaging talent, drowning under false accusations, and getting squeezed by corporate greed and bureaucratic overreach. As someone who’s stubbornly refused to bend the knee to Appraisal Management Companies (AMCs), I’m here...

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]]> https://appraisersblogs.com/the-appraisal-professions-perfect-storm-a-veterans-take-on-a-dying-craft/feed/ 100 32754 Lack of Fee Transparency: Exposing the AMC Exploitation https://appraisersblogs.com/lack-of-fee-transparency-exposing-the-amc-exploitation/ https://appraisersblogs.com/lack-of-fee-transparency-exposing-the-amc-exploitation/#comments Wed, 31 Jul 2024 12:30:07 +0000 https://appraisersblogs.com/?p=31182 By keeping the borrower in the dark about the true cost of the appraisal, the AMCs are able to charge exorbitant prices and pocket the difference (as shown in Figures 1 through 10), exploiting the consumer’s lack of knowledge.  Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Request for Information on Fees Imposed in Residential Mortgage Transactions. The growth of Appraisal Management Companies (AMCs) in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis was driven by a well-intentioned but ultimately misguided belief that they could help “ensure the integrity and independence” of property valuations. The reasoning...

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]]> https://appraisersblogs.com/lack-of-fee-transparency-exposing-the-amc-exploitation/feed/ 71 31182