Author: Guest Author

What If the Appraisal Comes in too Low? - Contesting a Low Appraisal... 17

What If the Appraisal Comes in too Low?

…how to prevent a low appraisal in the first place… As real estate brokers in New York City, many buyers ask us what options exist if the appraised value comes below the contract’s purchase price. We explain how the appraisal rebuttal process works and how to prevent a low appraisal in the first place. Here are the most frequent questions buyers ask us. For this reason, we will draft this article like a Q&A. What happens when the appraisal is below the purchase price? What to do when the appraisal comes too low? How to contest a low appraisal? Can...

Open Letter to Mortgage Lenders - Your Appraisal Management Company 22

Open Letter to Mortgage Lenders

How much vetting have you done on the appraisal management company? How involved are you as the lender in the day to day activities of the appraisal management company?… The world has changed and most everything in our lives involves technology. The technologies available to each of us are tools. They are not a more reliable means, merely more convenient. Human thought and analysis is still required in every aspect of life. When the Final Rules of the Dodd Frank Legislation went into effect, many lenders chose to use appraisal management companies with the false idea they had no liability for...

Our Job Is to Observe & Report... Not to Commit Mortgage Fraud 25

Our Job Is to Observe & Report

Our job is to observe and report. For an appraiser to arbitrarily go into another area to get “comps” merely because it would result in a higher value is an act of fraud… Dear President Biden, Sir, I welcome your incoming administration, and my sincerest hopes and well wishes are extended to you in terms of healing in this nation. Additionally, as an appraiser, I welcome the desire for equality in housing opportunity in the United States, and if there is any bias in my profession, I support efforts to correct this. However, in watching your party’s position on race...

We Should Be the Only One to Determine Any Modernization 2

Modernization Should Only Be Determined by the Appraisal Profession

The appraisal professions should be the only ones to determine any modernization; whatever that is… When Things Don’t Go as Expected Like so many others, I have learned the hard way not to accept any assignment without a little due diligent research first. Make no mistake I do not shy away from difficult assignments. I am under the firm belief the more difficult, the better. I actually enjoy the challenge. I recently accepted a private assignment over the phone for a lot in the City. I was driving and did not have access to MLS or locality records. I knew...

Classless Class Valuation AMC Lives Up to Its Nickname Again! 22

Classless Class Valuation

Class Valuation has done some pretty horrific things in the past, but this one has earned them the true title of Classless… It finally happened… I was sent an email from Class Valuation. The subject line “New Benefits from Class Valuation – Just in time for Thanksgiving!” Well fellow appraisers, I can honestly state with 100% certainty, Class Valuation has lived up to its nick name given to them by so many… Classless! Class Valuation has done some pretty horrific things in the past, but this one has earned them the true title of Classless. You see, the benefits Class...

Appraisal Racism... Fact or Fiction? Where is the Actual Evidence? 10

Appraisal Racism… Fact or Fiction?

Not one single point provides any evidence to the appraiser engaging in a racist act… No appraisal reports or actual evidence of racism has been produced by the accuser… Not one single case has been presented to the appraisal state boards… The real estate community is aware of the recent onslaught of articles going around accusing real estate appraisers of racism and appraising homes for less than what the actual homeowner thinks the home is worth. It started with Abena Horton in Jacksonville, FL Additional accusations were made in Chicago, Denver, and Newark, NJ. Each article written accuses the appraiser...

Why is Only One Side of the Racism Claim Appraisal Story Being Told? 260

Why is Only One Side of This Story Being Told?

There are always two sides to every story; however, understanding is a three-edged sword: your side, their side, and the truth in the middle. Recently there has been a wave of news stories about racism in the appraisal profession brought on by a couple in Jacksonville, Florida. That couple, Abena Horton, a black woman, and her husband Alex Horton, a white male, made claims that an appraiser who first appraised their home came in low on the appraisal due to her race. You can read one of the numerous stories here. Before anyone here accuses me of being racist etc.,...

Was Fast & Cheap AMC Appraiser Racist? Biggest Snowball of Your Life 14

The Biggest Snow Job of Your Life

Remember the saying “Pick two: fast, cheap or good. You can only have two of them?” Well you see, amcs got impatient and stopped reading after fast and cheap… The concept is simple enough, a fire wall between the loan production staff and the appraiser to avoid any possible pressure, coercion or influence. It sounded like a good idea to many; hence the HVCC legislation passed and was enacted. This was a period of trial and error for so many and before anyone found their way, along came Mr. Dodd and Mr. Frank to give their official stamp of approval...

7 Myths of the Great Financial Crisis & the Elite Fraud Schemes 4

7 Myths of the Great Financial Crisis

1. Fraud is a distraction Elite fraud and predation drove the Great Financial Crisis (GFC). By 2006, about 40% of all the mortgage loans made that year were “liar’s” loans – loans that did not verify the borrower’s income. The mortgage industry’s own anti-fraud experts (MARI) warned that the fraud incidence in these loans was 90%. In response, the industry rapidly increased its liar’s loans. In 2006, the industry made over one million fraudulent liar’s loans. Thomas Herndon’s 2017 study found those loans produced 70% of the mortgage losses. Liar’s loans hyper-inflated the bubble, increasing over 800% from 2003-2006. State...

The Honest Appraisers Warnings Should Have Prevented the Global Financial Crisis 4

Honest Appraisers Who Risked Their Careers

Meet the Honest Appraisers Whose Warnings Should Have Prevented the Great Financial Crisis The honest appraisers’ warning was ideal. It was timely, blunt, courageous, and unambiguous. If the regulators had acted on the warning, there would have been no Great Financial Crisis (GFC). Unfortunately, the Presidents Clinton and Bush (II) appointed financial regulators because they were anti-regulators, so they ignored the appraisers’ warning. From 2000 to 2007, a coalition of appraisal organizations … delivered to Washington officials a public petition; signed by 11,000 appraisers… [I]t charged that lenders were pressuring appraisers to place artificially high prices on properties [and] “blacklisting...

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