The American Guild of Appraisers (AGA) is national organization comprised of Professional Real Estate Appraisers, affiliated with the Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU) and the AFL-CIO.
Originally known as Fannie Mae’s Collateral Underwriter (CU), and subsequently Collateral Underwriter 2.0 (CU-2)i this always dubious product of Fannie Mae is increasingly being referred to by some, if not many American Appraisers as The Fraudulator / Underwriter 2.0 (FU-2). To be clear it is not limited to the Collateral Underwriter (CU & CU-2) software. The new Fraudulator (FU-2) combines the CU products with their numerous improper uses. The end result of which includes OUTRIGHT FRAUD being perpetrated against banks via the repurchase letters Fannie Mae now issues on a quota based system rather than because of legitimate appraisal defects....
More and more appraisers are retiring every day. Aside from that more and more are changing to lower liability careers. Eventually, the opportunists who have been promoting the scam of racial discrimination by appraisers such as career politicians, and ‘anti-discrimination’ software hucksters like Black Knight will be shown to be what they truly are. Recently, a highly respected appraiser who is also a senior designated member of a well-known national professional peer association, wrote an article about a new proposed law in New York ostensibly targeting New York appraisers. Mr. Bagott’s article had an unusual amount of hyperbole within it...
It still proves my point: Appraisal Management Companies take a sizable Cut of the appraisal fee… It was March 28th, 2018 that I wrote my very first blog post entitled “What’s not in your wallet?” where I went into great detail about how Appraisal Management Companies or AMCs get paid and how the consumer is not aware of the fact that the AMC is taking much of the fee while finding the cheapest and fastest appraiser. In that blog post, I gave many examples of the abuse appraisers and consumers are absorbing by these Appraisal Management Companies. How one borrower...
Yesterday morning, I attended the Georgia state appraisal board hearing on the proposed rule to eliminate the C&R fee law they have in place. You know, the one that is similar to the one in Dodd-Frank. The Georgia appraisal board apparently is being investigated by the FTC for their law. They thought that the FTC vs the Louisiana case was a ruling in favor of the FTC when in fact it was not, and wanted to avoid any sort of notion that they were price fixing or of anti trust. The board received letters from appraisers and others in the...
Anytime the government gets involved in an issue, it tends to have more adverse effects than positive ones. It makes things worse when they only have their plan in mind and NOT the FACTS from the people they are about to hurt. This is especially true in the Real Estate Appraisal profession and the newly introduced H.R. Bill entitled: Fair Appraisal and Inequity Reform Act of 2022. It’s essential to bring some information that not one person in the government or the people they are getting information from is talking about. First let’s step into my time machine and go...
DETAILS… NO MATTER HOW SMALL OR BIG NEED TO BE PRESENTED. If not, you failed. ASC, today you failed us all. Over the past several days, the Real Estate Appraisal Industry has been the subject of scrutiny with the release of the PAVE Report that the Interagency Task Force developed on Property Appraisal And Valuation Equity set forth by the Biden Administration. On March 23, 2022, there was a public meeting to unveil the Pave Task Force report on Racial Bias in the Real Estate Appraisal Profession. You can watch the press conference below as well as read the entire...
As Real Estate Appraisers, we are encountering an assault on our profession from the GSE’s with the hybrid appraisal reports, the rollout of the new desktop product and with appraisal waivers. These junk reports and the waivers continue to undermine the public trust in our industry and leave the appraisers exposed to great risk and the consumers left holding the bag if their mortgage goes south. This impacts not just us, but the Real Estate profession as a whole, because if the public loses trust in the industry, we will all lose, not just the appraisers. As appraisers, we need...
I can and will decline to do any of these Catch-22 Fraud facilitating misleading products promoted by a GSE… There are many legitimate times and reasons a desktop appraisal may be performed. In every single one of them, it is assignment specific based on the assignment specific needs of the client with a mutually agreed upon scope of work between the client and the appraiser. They also include a scope of work decided upon and explained in the appraiser’s own words. Any relevant extraordinary assumptions and limiting conditions dictated by the nature and use of the assignment are able to...
Are desktop appraisals with third-party inspectors protecting the public, or are these products about to destroy the very profession I love so much. The Uniform Standards Professional of Appraisal Practice (USPAP) are the key to maintaining public trust in real estate transactions. USPAP is pretty much the equivalent to the Bible, but it MUST be followed for appraisers. Created by the Appraisal Foundation, USPAP set forth the guidelines for how appraisers should perform their work. By following these standards, appraisers ensure that they act in a professional and unbiased manner. To expand, even more, USPAP states, “While USPAP does not...
…white America (government) keeps trying to ‘fix’ Black People who are not broken in the first place! We’ve all heard of redlining. No one doubts it existed and MAY still exist, among private lenders. It’s hard to accept major national banking corps would risk it but it IS possible. Having said that, there is ZERO percentage or benefit for any appraiser to engage in it. None. Another appraiser in Los Angeles, who is a great researcher, posted addresses of the properties involved in half a dozen complaints alleging racism by appraisers and so-called ‘white washing’ of the houses producing subsequent...
