US House Financial Services Committee Hearing on Appraisals – The subcommittee on Housing, Community Development and Insurance is holding a hearing entitled “What’s Your Home Worth? A Review of the Appraisal Industry” on June 20, 2019 at 2:00 PM. The hearing is open to the public and can be lived streamed. To find out more about this hearing, go to the US House Financial Services Committee website. Contact the Representatives on this subcommittee. Make sure consumer protection is at the forefront at this hearing and not the profits of the GSE’s. Are the representatives aware the GSE’s are sending unlicensed,...
If the DOJ investigation proves fruitful, it is possible appraisal data could be investigated as well… The Department of Justice has sent a Civil Information Demand (CID) notice to CoreLogic. The CID requires CoreLogic turn over documents and answer questions. The article by Rob Hahn explains that the case revolves around not only the search features of the MLS systems, but the contracts and agreements on the use of MLS data by CoreLogic. If this investigation proves fruitful, it is possible appraisal data could be investigated as well. If this is the case, it will be a fast rolling snowball...
VaCAP has received a message from the family of Ken Harney, Real Estate Syndicated Columnist: Dear Friends, It is with great sadness that I write to you to tell you that Ken’s disease has progressed to Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) and that as of today, we are in the care of hospice at home. We both want to thank you for all your prayers, your interest and concern and for the many years of friendship you have extended to us. Happily we are surrounded by our four children and our home is filled with love. Ken is not up to...
Lenders Allies, LLC, an appraisal management company, has agreed to a consent order with the Texas Appraiser Licensing and Certification Board (TALCB). On May 1, 2019 Lenders Allies agreed to a final order neither admitting guilt or denying guilt of violations of Texas law. The case revolved around the investigation of a complaint against an appraiser, which then lead them to Lenders Allies. The appraiser completed 59 appraisals for Lenders Allies over a period of two years as an employee and at no time was the appraiser on Lenders Allies appraiser panel maintained by the TALCB. Was this an administrative oversight...
Why haven’t State Licensing Boards audited AMCs? Things went a bit crazy, but in a very good way! Monday April 29th, VaCAP launched a consumer protection campaign on WRVA 1140 AM News Radio. Our email and social media accounts were non stop. Many of our sister Coalitions in The Network of State Coalitions helped spread the word and shared our Press Release with their members, posted on their websites and on their social media pages. A huge thank you to all our Sister Coalitions for helping us spread the word. In case you missed all the excitement, here is the...
VaCAP Launches Consumer Protection Campaign VaCAP is excited to launch a Consumer Protection Campaign! For months we prepped, we discussed, we negotiated, we wrote, we edited, wrote some more, edited some more… finally, we recorded. We have three 60 second consumer protection announcements airing on WRVA 1140 News Radio starting on Monday April 29th. The three consumer protection announcements will air randomly throughout the day for two weeks. WRVA 1140 News Radio live streams through Radio.com and iHeartRadio so anyone can tune in and listen. The consumer protection announcements will refer listeners to VaCAP’s website for more information where we have added a...
Collateral risk analysis (appraisals being a key element of that) is partially art, partially science. Those two facets are blended inseparably, like a soup…the ingredients can’t be separated. While computers can undeniably perform certain tasks better than humans (such as the handling of large amounts of data) appraisers can perform other absolutely critical aspects of the process better than a machine. The appraiser can actually see the property to be valued, they can utilize their human senses, they can use their judgement based upon what they observe by physically being at “ground zero” (the Subject property), and can then apply...
Clarocity changed back to Zaio…screwing over every outstanding appraiser payment… Last week VaCAP shared information on Clarocity Corporation and how the main investor StableView Assets was seizing the shares and foreclosing on the working assets, which includes Clarocity Valuation Services. StableView in turn had an agreement to sell Clarocity Valuation Services to iLOOKABOUT. We warned to proceed with caution or do not proceed at all. We described the situation as a “soap opera.” We continue to monitor them and have learned many things. We debated on sharing this information with everyone, however we feel obligated to keep our members informed. First of concern...
…so what will happen to Clarocity Valuation Services? VaCAP has been following the Clarocity Corporation Soap Opera since one of our members had trouble getting paid from them back in November of 2017. After doing a bit more research on them, we issued a warning to our members in December 2017 to pay attention as Clarocity was in financial trouble. We kept watching and alerted our members that many of the AppraiserLoft Executives were now at Clarocity. We shared Clarocity was borrowing money at a bought down rate of 24% and repaying in stock shares in lieu of cash; all...
Another Mueller Report has surfaced. The report is a Mueller REO Hybrid Appraisal Report and it was given to an appraiser as a sample. This one raises more questions than the last one! The photos from the property inspection do not tell the appraiser one thing. The photos are dark and the repairs the inspector states are needed, simply are not seen in the photos. It begs the question, does the appraiser have adequate information to complete a credible appraisal? Now take a look at the Mueller REO Hybrid Appraisal report. Pull up the report and follow along. Some things have...
