Tagged: DOM

How U.S. Home Valuations Are Being Subverted 21

How U.S. Home Valuations Are Being Subverted

At the crossroads of it all is a campaign to weaken or eliminate valuations… The nonprofit is now exploring ways it can set standards for automated valuations… Expect greater distortions from Freddie and Fannie’s plodding and committee-driven foray into automated valuations.  Sometimes when the hair on the back of your neck stands up, there’s a reason for it. The nation’s $11 trillion mortgage market has been nationalized. This coup occurred in broad daylight and gradually. With Freddie and Fannie now in their second decade in federal conservatorship, the prospect that they will ever again be subjected to the watchful eye...

Speed Regardless of Accuracy Under the Banner of Modernization 14

Speed Regardless of Accuracy Under the Banner of Modernization

Appraisers, something – comparing and contrasting – dawned on me last week, after reading another news release titled “Dean Kelker: Appraisal Modernization is Starting to Gain Momentum“, which is basically pushing an “Enterprise” singular ‘agenda’ of valuation speed regardless of accuracy. Under the banner of “modernization.” VA does not demand appraisers complete assigned appraisal assignments extraordinarily quickly. They give appraisers 7 – 10 days (depending on location) to submit the report after assignment. VA expects good quality and accurate information. FHA/USDA/ONAP also expects appraisal accuracy using an inspection protocol that many appraisers object to, and some choose not to do...

Two Cheers for an 'Evolved' Beltway Entrepreneur... David Bunton 27

Two Cheers for an ‘Evolved’ Beltway Entrepreneur… David Bunton

We come not to bury David Bunton, the public figure, but to praise David Bunton, the evolved Beltway organism. Who is David Bunton? Bunton has made a small fortune and canvassed the world at the helm of a 16-employee Washington, D.C., nonprofit that publishes a copyrighted code of conduct. The code gives his tiny fiefdom a big say in how collateral in the nation’s $11 trillion mortgage market is valued. He is a figure with outsized power in an immense market. His day-to-day funding source? For 30 years, his nonprofit, known as the Appraisal Foundation, has sold copies of its...

The Real Cause of the Home Value Gap Is the Income Gap 77

The Real Cause of the Home Value Gap Is the Income Gap

Blaming appraisers for the income gap will never solve the real underlying problem… Blaming appraisers for the income gap is as ridiculous as blaming appraisers for gun violence and gas prices. I watched the January 24, 2023 ASC Appraisal Bias hearing. Comments were requested after the hearing. This letter is my comment. I’ve been a real estate appraiser in Los Angeles, California for 40 years. I’ve been a licensed California Certified Residential Appraiser since licenses were first offered in 1993/1994. I’m a Latino woman who speaks English and Spanish. I appraise property in the diverse county of Los Angeles and...

Bringing More People Into a Dying Profession! 84

Bringing More People Into a Dying Profession!

Some people want to bring more people (primarily of color, which is great) into a dying profession. But the profession is being killed off by (mostly white!) people who think technology is the golden spoon to accurate valuations.  Appraisers, I’ve been studying, and writing about since 2006, all kind of issues surrounding our profession, and frankly some currently does not make sense. As many know, ‘we’ have been accused of not having “enough black people” in appraiser ranks. The claim is that blacks only represent 3% or so of the total population of appraisers. The people engaged in blaming appraisers...

Average AMC Appraisal Fee 2021 vs 2022 134

Average AMC Appraisal Fee to the Appraiser

Average AMC appraisal fee to the appraiser: AMCs are taking far more of the borrower-paid fee this year than they did last year.  Appraisers, I recently sent out a message asking appraisers to send me three data points comparing borrower-paid appraisal cost, and average AMC paid assignment fees in October, November 2021 and the same months in 2022 – for SFR assignments. My intent was to provide actual useful AMC-paid fee data compared to what the borrower pays for ‘the appraisal’, without revealing specific fees in any particular location. Replies to that message were much less than I expected, and only...

The Appraisal Problem and Undue Diligence 8

The Appraisal Problem

Gone are the days of hiring a professional appraiser to solve the appraisal problem. For decades lenders have taken on the responsibility of shaping the appraisal process and dictating the solutions to the appraisal problem. Savvy appraisers push back in a positive fashion to try and enable the lender to receive a report that not only meets USPAP, FIRREA, Fannie Mae, or HUD/FHA/VA an UAD reporting guidelines, but also provides the client with a report that is clear, concise, accurate and not misleading. An appraisal report can be on time, have all the boxes checked, no inconsistencies, meet all the...

Commercial Property: What Does a Real Estate Appraisal Cost? 7

Commercial Appraisal Reports: How Much Do They Cost?

Every business that owns a commercial property will require an appraisal. Commercial real estate transactions are the most common. Commercial real estate appraisals are necessary when acquiring or selling a commercial building. As with home appraisals, commercial property appraisals offer unbiased, third-party insight into their value. In contrast to residential properties such as single-family houses or condominiums, commercial appraisals estimate the value of stores, offices, hotels, apartment buildings, and the like. When you build, insure, tax, mortgage, or sell real estate, an appraisal is required. Besides helping secure a loan or ensure that you have enough insurance, it may also...

Appraisers Should Closely Watch Probe of Departed Brookings Boss 48

Appraisers Should Closely Watch Probe of Departed Brookings Boss

The chief of the Brookings Institution, a retired four-star general, resigned last month under investigation of lobbying on behalf of a foreign government and then covering it up. If the allegations are true, it means the think tank, under the general’s watch, was secretly taking illicit cash from at least one outside interest group at a time it was engaged in research that irreparably damaged the reputation of the nation’s real estate appraisers. Astute appraisers wondered whether Brookings might have also been influenced by any well-placed donations from other groups, such as the powerful lobbies of the Realtors, home builders,...

ASC Blaming Appraisers For Low Home Values in Communities of Color 64

ASC Blaming Appraisers

The Appraisal Subcommittee, because they were directed to do so, has produced a report, which frankly and explicitly lays the blame for low market values of homes in ‘communities of color’ directly at the feet of independent appraisers involved with mortgage lending. You will start seeing accusatory slanted media reports about this report. ABC news already has distributed it. A TV station in San Francisco has aired a story already. Yes, the report casually mentions actual facts that GOVERNMENT policies and procedures promulgated segregated and extraordinarily unfair housing issues in the US, from the 1930’s into the early 1960’s. The...

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