It is important for every appraiser to submit comments… The Appraisal Subcommittee wants to hear from appraisers on Tristar Bank’s request for appraisal waivers. The comment period is open until April 9, 2018. VaCAP has previously participated in a group letter with other organizations and expressed our concerns on this topic. We will once again be part of a group letter as well as send in our own comments. It is important for every appraiser to submit comments on how this is a dangerous slippery slope if the waiver is granted. Consumer protection is the issue and the door will be...
Clear Capital ClearVal… Value Not So ClearCut… I’ve finally had an opportunity to read a hybrid ‘appraisal’ start to finish. All may read the unedited, non-redacted version in all its glory… or infamy, as the case may be. Please click here (report also embedded below) and read it first. I’ll wait right here. Finished? Great. One thing is clear. It is not an appraisal by any current accepted definition that I am familiar with. Ironically, there is also very little that is clear as far as support for the opined values is concerned. (I’m old fashioned and think it should...
Another Appraisal Waiver request has been sent to the ASC. This time from City Bank and Trust in Oklahoma. The bank is claiming a shortage of acceptable appraisers in the area. Their solution: “Our bank has on staff an individual who has maintained a Certified Residential Appraiser license until April 2017. This individual has provided acceptable appraisals and evaluations for the past 20+ years. He determined to allow his license to expire due to the rather burdensome CE requirements and the distance to and from approved course within the state. With the educational requirements, training process, number of hours required...
Gas prices in California were $4.25 to $4.50 when oil was last at $100 a barrel. A week ago they were $50+/- a barrel and our pump prices were still over $4.00 a gallon. We are told ‘environmental’ mandated blended methanol is the cause of the $1.30 higher pricing than anywhere else in the Continental US. When those environmental laws were being passed we were told they’d only add from $0.05 to MAX of $0.15 per gallon-NOT $1.30 or 43% more! We KNOW that California politicians have also very recently heavily increased gas taxes in their never ending war against internal combustion....
For well over a year, the Columbia Society of Real Estate Appraisers and five other nonprofit appraiser groups have been working on an industry paper entitled Regulatory Issues Affecting the Real Estate Appraisal Profession (subtitled: Unintended Consequences of the Dodd-Frank Law and Potential Remedies). The paper is aimed at informing lawmakers of some of the unintended consequences of the Dodd-Frank law as it relates to appraisers and consumers. We hope that lawmakers will address and correct some of the issues brought to light in this paper. The Letter Over the past year, a select group of professional appraisal organizations have...
It is merely a SALE… Appraisers, Something’s been gnawing at my craw ever since January when FNMA’s wonderful Collateral Underwriter (CU) was unleashed to the world. And before that, when FNMA’s Appraiser Quality Monitoring (AQM) process was introduced to judge the work of appraisers. No one else has written about this. No one has even mentioned it. So I will: It has to do with the word “Comp” which is used liberally by Fannie Mae (FNMA). What exactly is a “Comp?” In FNMA’s world, it’s any property that they obtain, either by their vast AVM process which examines millions of...
Some Good News…For a Change? – 2nd Annual List (A Work-In-Progress) Last year, around Thanksgiving, I had put together a list of some positive things going on for appraisers. It was/is all-too-rare that we hear positive news regarding the appraisal profession. There is an awful lot of complaining that goes on, most of it justifiable, but little good news that gets shared. Part of the problem is that there is no central source for information regarding our profession which appraisers might utilize in order to find out what is going on across the country and affecting our profession, and could be used to...
Representatives of several independent state professional appraiser organizations met in Chicago, Illinois on Saturday October 11th, to further discuss collaboration on issues affecting their membership. The network, which started as a conversation among three State appraiser organizations less than a year ago, now comprises 16 such State Organizations which is expected to continue growing. The group, which functions as a network rather than a formal organization is unique in its focus and operation. The network has no single elected leader but is comprised of leaders from each participating state organization; it is self-governing by consensus. Participating organizations do not pay...
Banking Agencies are Told Proposed AMC Rules Fall Short on Guidance In comments filed June 6 with several federal banking agencies, the American Society of Appraisers (ASA) and the National Association of Independent Fee Appraisers expressed our concerns that rules proposed to regulate appraisal management company (AMC) conduct lack sufficient detail to allow for effective implementation. Additionally, the organizations expressed concern that some provisions of the proposed rule depart from Congress’s intent when the enabling law was included in the Dodd-Frank Act, and could negatively affect the overall public policy goals. In the comment letter, ASA and NAIFA cover numerous...
The Appraisal Profession & Appraiser’s Business Decimated by the Increasing Dominance of Appraisal Management Company Services (AMCs) For the past two months, VaCAP has participated in a networked council consisting of 13 professional state appraisal organizations in responding to the Agencies request for comments of the Proposed Rules on Minimum Requirements for Appraisal Management Companies: Dear Agencies; This letter is in response to the Agencies’ request for comments on the Proposed Rules on Minimum Requirements for Appraisal Management Companies. The undersigned represent a networked council of professional state appraisal organizations. We appreciate this opportunity to comment and thank the Agencies for...
