Tagged: CU

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Collateral Underwriter, What’s Under the Hood?

Collateral Underwriter – Garbage In, Garbage Out (GIGO) FNMA has a fascination for first patenting garbage, & then implementing it as policy! FNMA simply LIED! Collateral Underwriter IS an automated ‘appraisal review’ despite disclaimers. It was never intended as anything else. Read the patent application below. Before I get into the details, I want to ask each reader to forward this to every appraiser you know. This concerns FNMA’s patent of the seriously flawed techniques and underlying support for their Collateral Underwriter (CU) Risk Rating “System”. It’s time for appraisers to take action against the unreliable system which is unfairly...

Urban or Suburban 8

Urban… or Suburban?

Difference between Urban and Suburban locations Appraisers, Last week, I asked your input regarding why in many cases appraisers check suburban in the Neighborhood Characteristics when often the subject’s location is actually an Urban area (at least from the definitions perspective below). The example I used was from an actual report. The subject property is located within a city of 90,000 population. It has typical urban services, including police and fire protection, utility water deliver and sewer service. It is surrounded by competing subdivisions, nearby shopping, colleges, city administrative offices and business buildings. It is also close to Interstate 5,...

College Degree Requirement is Flawed - AppraisersBlogs 51

College Degree Requirement is Flawed

Why the 4-year college degree requirement is flawed and how to make the requirement work? Many, many years ago, my local college offered appraisal classes. You could take a couple classes, go take the state test and start knocking on doors. New people didn’t need a mentor. And new people learned by trial and error. It probably wasn’t the best way to do things. But it did allow for new people to freely get into the profession without a bunch of hurdles to overcome. Times have changed. Today, new people have to have a 4-year college degree in anything first,...

Reality check for appraisers 6

A Reality Check for Appraisers

I am not selling road-apples to my fellow appraisers… Appraisers as a group DO NOT PAY ATTENTION to what is going on within the profession OR seemingly unrelated areas that affect the profession. FNMA & Freddie ALREADY HAVE authority to fund loans without appraisals. This is in anticipation of an appraiser shortage. AI has appointed itself the ‘voice of all appraisers’ in America. They actually made the statement at the California TAF meeting in June that they speak for all appraisers interests AND that they put those interests of the entire profession above their own. (source-live meeting; TAF/ASB Redondo Beach...

Valuing the Contribution of Solar Panels 39

Valuing the Contribution of Solar Panels

How to value the appraised property with solar panels Appraisers, Valuing the contribution of solar panels on homes has become one of the trickiest aspects of our work over the past decade. Attached is a very well written 45 page report that will help all appraisers better understand this issue, and perhaps lead you in the right direction when you encounter homes with solar panels. I strongly recommend that you print a copy for your library. Oh, and actually read it! The basis of the report is how to value the appraised property with solar panels, when no comps have...

Adjustment Values, Frequency & Dollar Amount 18

Adjustment Values, Frequency & Dollar Amount

Ever wondered what other appraisers are doing with adjustment values? Appraisers, Have you ever wondered what other appraisers are doing with adjustments in their reports? CoreLogic has done research over the past 3 years, using 1.3 MILLION+ reports, and has produced the graph attached here.  You may want to print this for reference. This graph shows the percentage of time a certain feature is adjusted, and the average dollar amount of the adjustment for each of those. It’s rather interesting. The highest amount of adjustment, approximately $14,000, is for the Quality Rating. Not really surprising as to the amount, but the percentage...

A Possible Solution to Customary and Reasonable Fees - C&R Fees Solutions 10

A Possible Solution to Customary & Reasonable Fees

Over the past five years, a major subject of talk in the appraiser world has been that of Customary and Reasonable Fees. Unfortunately, much of the dialogue has been mostly one-sided. We tend to do a lot of griping about the fact that many of us are not being paid what is “customary” or “reasonable”, but there are very few solutions offered up. When I was young and would sometimes (not often, of course) complain about this or that, my father would always say, “Don’t come to me with a complaint unless you have a possible solution.” It was sound advice then...

Dreaded Fannie Mae Certified Letter Regarding Condition Ratings - Imagecredit Flickr - Mehta12 32

Dreaded FNMA Letter RE Condition Ratings

Certified Letter From Fannie Mae Regarding Condition Ratings And then it happens, the moment we all know is coming – the dreaded certified letter from Fannie Mae. My door bell rings and the mailman is standing on my porch with pen in hand.  Now don’t get me wrong, we have all been warned. They have the super computer comparing all of us and if you are the outlier you’re getting notified!  If a majority of Appraisers give a specific house a certain rating and you disagree, you must be wrong – BOOM – letter.  I assume this is the case as I...

The Realities of Regression - Imagecredit Flickr - Walfer X 6

The Realities of Regression

The use of Fannie Mae’s Collateral Underwriter (CU) tool by lenders has created some “hot topics” for appraisers. Durbin is encouraged by the use of CU and thinks it will be a good thing for the appraisal profession. One of these topics is the discussion around how to clearly show the methodology the appraiser used to arrive at the adjustment values. In this presentation Durbin proposes the use of “Regression Analysis” (RA) as a solution to this problem.
Durbin lamented there is a perception that appraisers make subjective, anecdotal, arbitrary, and unscientific adjustments. Now that CU will be looking at adjustments…

AMC's “My Way or the Highway” Attitude 47

AMC’s “My Way or the Highway” Attitude

Apparent appraiser abuse by AMC’s… As Chairman of the American Guild of Appraisers (AGA) National Appraiser Peer Review Committee, I have had the opportunity to see and hear directly about many cases involving alleged, as well as apparent appraiser abuse by AMC’s. These cases ranged geographically from California, Arizona, Michigan, Illinois, Florida, North Carolina, Louisiana, New Jersey, Virginia, New York, Maryland, and District of Columbia. As a QC consultant to a smaller appraiser owned AMC, I have also seen low fee spreadsheets from a variety of lenders that had 90% listed at the SAME APPRAISER fees: $495.00 (which INCLUDED the AMC...

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