Category: Appraisers News

AMC Engagement Letter: Do Not Include Your Invoice 17

AMC Engagement Letter: Appraisers Do Not Include Your Invoice

File the complaint against the AMC yourself OR Forward the engagement letter to VaCAP to file on your behalf.  At the recent Virginia Appraisal Board Meeting on Wednesday June 28th, a discussion occurred about Appraisal Management Companies prohibiting appraisers from including their invoices with the appraisal report. The overall consensus of the Board Members was this practice could be a violation of Virginia Appraisal Management Company Statute § 54.1-2022 B. “B. The appraisal management company shall not prohibit an appraiser from disclosing in the appraisal report the actual fees charged by an appraiser for appraisal services, and shall otherwise comply...

AMC / Appraisal / Appraisal Management Companies / Appraisal News / Appraisal Organizations / Appraisers News

Those Pesky Words... Words Considered Biased 24

‘Pesky’ Words. Keeping Appraisers out of Language Purgatory

Appraisers, on July 17, 2023, a document from Freddie Mac was circulated to numerous appraisers around the US which identified certain words and other info that can be considered to be ‘BIASED’ in appraisal reports. Here is the Link to the Bulletin. We need to step back for a moment and carefully analyze and consider why that was done, and what it means to appraisers. In many ways, appraisers forget the purpose of the appraisal assignment – which is to value real estate. In other words, the physical structures tied to the land. But too often, elements of personal or...

Appraisal / Appraisal News / Appraisers News / Fannie Mae - Freddie Mac / Federal Housing Administration / FHA

Fighting for Consumer Protection and the Appraisal Industry 34

Fighting for Consumer Protection & the Appraisal Industry

I’m just an Average Joe, surrounded by some really smart people, and we are fighting back. I often wonder if Certified General, MAI or SRA appraisers sitting in their ivory towers often chuckle to themselves and say HA, data collectors will never impact commercial. Who cares about the residential appraiser. Well, it looks like it’s time for you all to care. Copied from a Real Estate Forum Post: “Good morning, My name is Kevin Graham, and I am with Beacon Property Data Collection Services. You had recently signed up to become a panel member and we have an assignment for...

Appraisal / Appraisal News / Appraisers News / Trending

Has Fannie Mae Gotten Too Big to Control? 28

Has FNMA Gotten Too Big to Control?

Has Fannie Mae gotten too big to control? That was one of the many questions asked to Senators & Congressman while in Washington DC. The agreement on whether Fannie Mae has gotten too big to control was unanimous. Most believe that the company is too large and complex to be effectively managed by the government. They argue that Fannie Mae is too big to fail, and that if it were to collapse, it would have a devastating impact on the housing market. Others believe that Fannie Mae is sorta manageable, and that the government has taken steps to reduce the...

Appraisal / Appraisal News / Appraisers News / Fannie Mae - Freddie Mac / Federal Housing Finance Agency / FHFA

Foregoing Contingencies! But What About Fiduciary Duty? 14

Foregoing Contingencies! But What About Fiduciary Duty?

By foregoing contingencies such as home inspections and appraisals altogether, mortgage lenders risk violating their fiduciary duty – which is supposed to prioritize the interests of the borrower above all else. It is no surprise that some loan officers are salivating over the prospect of not having to wait for a full appraisal or a home inspection. After all, who doesn’t want to close more deals in less time? While this may be beneficial from a broker’s perspective, it could result in borrowers making decisions without being fully informed about their investment. Kim Nichols, senior managing director of Pennymac TPO,...

Appraisal / Appraisal News / Appraisers News / Fannie Mae - Freddie Mac

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Is Overlooked by HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge 19

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Is Overlooked by HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge

Marcia Fudge, the Secretary of HUD, decided to convene a special meeting of master minds with absolutely no real diversity, equity or inclusion included, with the intent of “closing the racial gap and increasing access to homeownership in African American communities.” Appraisers, all the racial mud-slinging against appraisers by the current government is extremely disheartening toward our honored profession. The people ‘in power’ over the last few years have been fond of image building and acronyms, believing those items will have magical influence over property values, and how people conduct themselves. One of these is named DEI, which stands for...

Appraisal / Appraisal News / Appraisers News / HUD / The US Department of Housing and Urban Development / Trending

GLA Adjustment Process: - Adjusting the Full Difference vs. a Threshold Amount 79

GLA Adjustment: Adjusting Full Difference vs a Threshold Amount

Appraisers, on Thursday, before the Memorial Day holiday, I circulated across the US an email asking for response to a simple two question survey about how you “adjust” the GLA square footage between the Subject and Comparables. The questions: adjust 100% of the square foot difference, or adjust the difference after a ‘threshold’ square foot amount (meaning not the full 100% difference). I received a respectable number of responses compared to emails sent out, and also posted to 3 different web forums, nearly 200 replies. So that’s enough to validate the percentage of both responses, and report the trends. As...

Appraisal / Appraisal News / Appraisal Software / Appraisers News / Trending

Dazzled by Wizardry, Federal Mortgage Regulators Ignore Zillow Debacle 17

Dazzled by Wizardry, Federal Mortgage Regulators Ignore Zillow Debacle

This rulemaking is one more sign that federal bureaucrats are all in on a whacky plan to use technical wizardry to tease out the value of individual properties across the country… Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was a committed technocrat. Under his direction, a team of policy advisors descended into the Pentagon’s cavernous basement in 1967. They fed punch cards into the basement’s IBM mainframe computers with everything that could be quantified about the Vietnam War. Numbers of ships, tanks, transport helicopters, gunships, fixed-wing aircraft, artillery, troop strength, machine guns, ammo. They queried the computers, “What year will we win...

Appraisal / Appraisal News / Appraisers News / Automated Valuation Models / AVM / CFPB

NAR Concerns and Survey on Property Data Collectors 12

NAR Concerns & Survey on Property Data Collectors

NAR is conducting a survey and wants to know if you have any concerns regarding property data collectors, if the appraisal fees are higher since the involvement of data collectors, if borrowers are made aware of a fee for the appraisal and a separate AMC fee or were the fees bundled, if the property data collector gave the impression that they were the appraiser, whether you have any safety and privacy concerns with the data collection process, quality of data collected and whether they need to be licensed…  In a letter to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) regarding appraisal...

AMC / Appraisal / Appraisal Management Companies / Appraisal News / Appraisers News / Automated Valuation Models

AMC Fee Impact on Appraisal Fee 78

AMC Fee Impact on Appraisal Fee

While the borrower was charged $695 for the appraisal, the appraiser was only paid $301. The AMC fee was $394.  We often hear complaints from GSEs and lenders that appraisal fees are too high, hence the push for modernization. Yet they fail to acknowledge that this is due to an overly bloated middleman – the appraisal management company (AMC). As a consumer, you should be aware of the potential for being fleeced on appraisal fees. It’s possible that you could be paying more than double what the appraiser is receiving for actually doing the work, with the excess going to...

AMC / Appraisal / Appraisal Management Companies / Appraisal News / Appraisers News / Dodd-Frank Act / C&R Fees

xml sitemap
blank