Tagged: AVMs

AGA Objects De Minimis Increase Proposal - It is Time to Call out the Liars 40

AGA Objects De Minimis Increase Proposal

We object to the proposal to increase the de minimis threshold at which no appraisal is required… Sirs: The American Guild of Appraisers (AGA), of the Office Professional Employees International Union (#44 OPEIU) of the AFL-CIO represents the members and extended family and retirees, taxpayer and consumer real estate appraisal interests of nearly Twelve and a half million citizens and voters. We object to the proposal to increase the de minimis threshold at which no appraisal is required from $250,000 to $400,000. Respectfully, if anything is done with it at all, lowering it to a range not to exceed $100,000...

Mortgage Industry Expert Wants to “Eliminate” Appraisers – A Response 109

Expert Wants to “Eliminate” Appraisers

Mortgage Industry Expert Wants to “Eliminate” Appraisers – A Response The National Mortgage News website just published an interview with an industry expert who openly stated she wants to “eliminate” the appraisal profession. No subtlety, no nuance — she wants us gone! Given the name of the website, I didn’t expect to find too many pro-appraiser viewpoints. I ran a search for the term “appraiser” on the website’s internal search engine and many of the articles that came up were about eliminating the profession or the current state of appraisal waivers.…to “eliminate” the appraisal profession…   Rather than read the article...

An Appraiser’s First Impressions of Clear Capital’s AVM 28

First Impressions of Clear Capital’s AVM

An Appraiser’s First Impressions of Clear Capital’s AVM… It’s no secret the lending industry is aggressively pursuing alternatives to traditional appraisals. While most participants in the industry will concede an appraisal is still the gold standard for collateral valuation, they increasingly see the appraisal as something to be steered around or avoided altogether. An array of products/alternatives are being bandied in lieu of a traditional appraisal: Hybrids, Evaluations, BPOs (broker price opinions), Desktop Appraisals, and outright Appraisal Waivers. The industry is also turning its attention more and more to AVMs (automated valuation models). AVMs have been around for nearly three...

The Erosion of Bank Underwriting Standards. Let's Get Rid of Appraisers. 18

Let’s Get Rid of Appraisers. What Could Go Wrong?

Why would regulators fundamentally weaken bank underwriting standards? Appraisers Warned The World In The Late 1990s And No One Listened. It Is Now Time To Listen Again as History is About to Repeat Itself. There’s a proposal from the FDIC, Federal Reserve, and Treasury Department not to require appraisals for some mortgages under $400,000. The Trump Administration wants to disrupt the role of appraisers, but that’s not a good idea. This change can impact several groups in particular: 1) Consumers: Removing appraisers from transactions can mean a lot of loans get made that shouldn’t be made. Does that sound familiar? We...

Open Letter to Taxpayers... Afterall, Taxpayers Aren’t Stupid 32

Open Letter to Taxpayers

An Open Letter to Taxpayers Dear Ms; Mrs. & Mr. Taxpayer: In a recent article published by Housing Wire; authored by Ben Lane (November 20, 2018) it was reported that our federal “regulators” are at it again. “At what?” One might ask. Facilitation of increased LOAN FRAUD & consumer deception with Taxpayers yet again left holding the bag. Click here for the article Back in 1994 (actually it started in 1989-91 when FIRREA was being drafted) the Fed agreed that the loan threshold for banks when an appraisal of real estate would not be required was $250,000. That was roughly...

Financial Ecosystem Changes & ASA's Response to the Treasury Report 10

Financial Ecosystem Changes

Treasury report calling for a more digitalized mortgage process, including the use of AVMs, hybrid appraisals & appraisal waivers… A few days ago, HousingWire reported the Trump Administration calling for sweeping changes to the financial ecosystem. In short, the article references a report by the Department of the Treasury calling for a more digitalized mortgage process, including the use of AVMs, hybrid appraisals and appraisal waivers. The HousingWire article has a link to the Treasury Report, which is 222 pages or you can click here to read the report. VaCAP has received a copy of the ASA’s response to the Treasury Report....

Push for Automated Appraisals... Even Paranoid You Can Have Enemies 16

Just Because You’re Paranoid Doesn’t Mean They Aren’t After You

It appears the government sees the future of appraising as one driven largely by Automated Valuation Models, Hybrids, and outright appraisal waivers…. The title for this article comes from a famous quote by Joseph Heller (the author of Catch-22 fame). I thought of his pithy quote when reading the recommendations by the Department of Treasury to the president. The title of the report: “A Financial System That Creates Economic Opportunities Nonbank Financials, Fintech, and Innovation” seems innocuous enough. However, some decidedly non-innocuous observations / recommendations regarding the appraisal industry appear starting on page 103. The report starts off promising enough;...

A Rebuttal to Real Estate Agent's Article Slamming the Appraisal Industry 46

Slamming the Appraisal Industry

A Rebuttal to Real Estate Agent Slamming the Appraisal Industry… Forbes recently published an opinion article that attacked the appraisal industry and placed all the blame on appraisers for real estate transactions falling through due to a “low” opinion of value. The article was written by a real estate agent out of Arizona. While he raises some good points, he is conflating a lot of issues together. 1) He does point out that there are bad appraisals. We all know that. There are bad appraisers just like there are bad agents who have clients list a property far above any...

Let’s just use the Tax Assessments...Tax Values just as Accurate as AVMs? 22

Tax Values Just as Accurate as AVMs?

In a head to head contest between tax values and AVMs for use in mortgage lending, I’ll take tax assessments every time… The battles rage on to decide who will take over the automated valuation process. There are big companies lining up to take over this massive profit arena. And, make no mistake, it’s all about the money. At the end of every discussion about AVMs verses traditional appraisals, it has less to do with faster or cheaper, or better, and sadly little to do with consumer protection. It has to do with who gets the profits that will be...

Fix What is Broken before Replacing the Product 34

Fix It Before Replacing It!

Fix what is broken before replacing the product. Appraisers are talented professionals that know how to take mass amounts of data, filter through it, analyze & make sense of it all. Utilize the talents of the 70,000 plus experienced, licensed professionals & don’t short change the consumer… Yesterday was the National Association of Realtors Real Property Valuation Forum: Rethinking Real Estate Valuations: Alternatives to Traditional Appraisals. First, VaCAP was well represented with 8 members present from all over the state.  There were many of our Network colleagues there as well from all over the country. Thank you for taking the...

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