As if the economy isn’t difficult enough, now appraisers are facing financial ruin through CAIVRS. CAIVRS is a Federal government database of delinquent Federal debtors that allows federal agencies to reduce the risk to federal loan and loan guarantee programs. CAIVRS alerts participating Federal lending agencies when an applicant for credit benefits, or for a position of trust in support of the administration of a Federal credit program, has a Federal lien, judgment or a Federal loan that is currently in default or foreclosure, or has had a claim paid by a reporting agency. In short, this is a database...
Guidelines to help builders communicate with appraisers… November 7, 2011 – NAHB has developed a set of guidelines to help builders communicate with appraisers and lenders to ensure that they receive an accurate valuation of the new homes they are selling. The two-page document advises builders to meet with the appraiser on the site of where the home has been or will be built and provide direct support for the price with whatever relevant information they can. For example, builders should provide the appraiser with all appropriate comps, market and absorption data, specifications of the property, materials in the property...
The US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Rural Development announced that the Uniform Appraisal Dataset will apply to the Single Family Housing Section 502 Guaranteed and Direct Loan Programs effective January 1, 2012. The purpose of this Administrative Notice (AN) is to announce the USDA Rural Development Single Family Housing Section 502 Guaranteed and Direct Loan Programs will adopt the new Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Uniform Appraisal Dataset (UAD) effective September 1, 2011. To allow sufficient time to make any necessary data system changes, the requirements of this AN will be mandatory for all appraisals completed on or after January...
In the two weeks leading up to Thanksgiving Day, the FDIC sued 29 more individual residential appraisers. All of the appraisers sued in this round reside in California. The FDIC’s complaints against them uniformly allege that the appraisers were professionally negligent by overappraising the value of properties securing loans by failed Downey Savings in 2004-2007. The average claim against each appraiser is for approximately $350,000. The complaints concern both origination and review appraisals. One of the recently sued appraisers has now been sued twice by the FDIC. This is the third appraiser to be sued twice by the FDIC. Another...
Appraisal Institute Calls for Transparency on Home Buyers’ Forms saying that consumers deserve to know what they’re paying for, the Appraisal Institute asked the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Nov. 16 to require more transparency on home buyers’ forms. In a joint letter with the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers, AI asked the CFPB to separate appraisal fees from administration and processing fees on the settlement forms that consumers receive when purchasing a home. Created by Congress, the CFPB oversees consumer disclosure laws and is authorized to develop new forms to inform consumers and charges assessed...
Fuzzy Math In a housing market that’s been mostly a cause for gloom, so-called home-valuation technology has become one of the few sources of excitement. After years of real estate pros holding all the informational cards in the home-sale game, Web-driven companies like Zillow, Homes.com and Realtor.com are offering to reshuffle the deck. They’ve rolled out at-your-fingertips technology via laptop and smartphone to give shoppers and owners an estimate of what almost any home is worth. And people have flocked to the data in startling numbers. Vigilant homeowners check their values to help decide whether it’s worth the hassle of...
The Appraisal Institute launched its new blog, Opinions of Value, on November 14. Content will feature the appraiser perspective on legislative and regulatory issues, enhanced discussion about recent industry media coverage and thoughts from AI leaders about upcoming trends. While a great deal of content exists in the blogosphere, the Appraisal Institute is uniquely qualified to provide expert analysis on all appraisal-related topics because the organization is the nation’s oldest and largest professional association of real estate appraisers with more than 24,000 members in 60 countries.
If you’ve paid for a home appraisal within the last five years, a chunk of that charge likely went to a middleman you never knew existed. And because a third party was used, it might have driven up your closing costs and affected the quality of the valuation. Lenders often use appraisal management companies to block collusion between mortgage brokers and appraisers — and to comply with anti-fraud rules the industry adopted in May 2009. The hotly debated reforms have boded well for the appraisal managers, whose presence in the U.S. has jumped from a handful in the 1990s to...
Wanted: Angry Appraisers Experienced residential appraisers have spent the past 30 months wishing for change and wondering if it would ever come. Most were fooled into believing that justice could be found by writing to politicians, signing petitions, and waiting for their state agencies and appraisal organizations to fix the problem. Nearly two years passed and the remaining appraisers continue to tread water while scanning the horizon for signs of a rescue. Appraisers awakened on April 1, 2011 (Appraiser Fool’s Day) with renewed hope, only to find that the tiny clause within Dodd Frank, “customary AND reasonable fees” had been altered at...
WASHINGTON, Nov. 7, 2011 / PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The American Guild of Appraisers (AGA), a national organization of real estate appraisers that is an affiliate of the AFL-CIO’s Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU), announced today it has retained a law firm as part of a broad-reaching effort to overturn recent federal regulations that dramatically cut the fees that appraisers are paid to perform appraisals, and threaten the viability of professional appraisal practice and the reliability of appraisals used in real estate transactions. In the aftermath of the national financial collapse brought on in part by badly underwritten subprime loans,...
