Tagged: finance

And Why Is the Second Appraisal Always the “Correct Value?” 19

And Why Is the Second Appraisal Always the “Correct Value?”

On Friday morning, May 19, I was one of five expert witnesses (and the only as an appraiser) to testify on the topic of appraisal bias in front of the Appraisal Subcommittee (ASC). During the first hour of testimony, our fourth grandchild was born. My wife was in the audience and stepped out of the hearing (the nerve!) to take the call from my oldest son on the news of our new granddaughter. The Appraisal Subcommittee (ASC) held a second hearing on challenges facing the appraisal industry, including barriers to entering the profession and racial bias in home appraisals. The...

NAR Concerns and Survey on Property Data Collectors 12

NAR Concerns & Survey on Property Data Collectors

NAR is conducting a survey and wants to know if you have any concerns regarding property data collectors, if the appraisal fees are higher since the involvement of data collectors, if borrowers are made aware of a fee for the appraisal and a separate AMC fee or were the fees bundled, if the property data collector gave the impression that they were the appraiser, whether you have any safety and privacy concerns with the data collection process, quality of data collected and whether they need to be licensed…  In a letter to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) regarding appraisal...

VA Appraisal Request Form at Heart of AIR Violation Class Action 61

VA Appraisal Request Form at Heart of AIR Violation Class Action

While the statute doesn’t explicitly mention that providing a loan amount is an AIR violation… When a mortgage lender seeks to make a Veterans Administration-backed home loan, the lender requests an appraisal from the VA’s appraiser panel by using a form entitled Request for Determination of Reasonable Value. For many years, until it was revised in July 2022, this form had a box labelled “Refinancing-Amount of Proposed Loan.” This box asked the lender to fill in the proposed loan amount for refinances. Once submitted, the form begins the appraisal process and is provided to the appraiser assigned by the VA...

The Scam of Racial Discrimination by Appraisers 35

The Scam of Racial Discrimination by Appraisers

More and more appraisers are retiring every day. Aside from that more and more are changing to lower liability careers. Eventually, the opportunists who have been promoting the scam of racial discrimination by appraisers such as career politicians, and ‘anti-discrimination’ software hucksters like Black Knight will be shown to be what they truly are.  Recently, a highly respected appraiser who is also a senior designated member of a well-known national professional peer association, wrote an article about a new proposed law in New York ostensibly targeting New York appraisers. Mr. Bagott’s article had an unusual amount of hyperbole within it...

Woke 'Bounty' Bill Will Chill Speech of New York Appraisers 8

Woke ‘Bounty’ Bill Will Chill Speech of New York Appraisers

A bill being crafted by the New York state Senate’s Finance Committee would, in effect, place a $2,000 bounty on the head of any heretical real estate appraiser in the Empire State who dares conclude a value that fails to satisfy a seller, serial refinancer or commissioned broker in a deal. Vulnerable buyers, who could be paying off inflated loans based on coerced values, would simply have to live with it. If enacted, the bill would authorize fines to be levied on appraisers for a new category of thoughtcrime – something called “appraisal discrimination.” Half the proceeds from the fines...

Pushback to Fannie Mae: Certified Appraisers vs. Unlicensed Data Collectors 7

Certified Appraisers vs. Unlicensed Data Collectors

Here’s a great take on the difference between Certified Appraisers vs. Unlicensed Data Collectors by Leigh Brown, President of the NC Association of REALTORS. Fannie Mae has been working hard to get rid of appraisers for years. Their latest twist is to re-categorize many appraisers as “Unlicensed Data Collectors.” Fannie Mae will end up creating more instability for the trillions in the bond market – investors will have to process millions of valuations with the physical attributes of the home collected by unlicensed, uninsured, and unprepared individuals getting paid $10-$25 per inspection.   AI meets with Fannie Mae regulators to...

Borrowers With Good Credit Scores to Foot the Bill for Higher Risk Borrowers 24

Borrowers With Good Credit Scores to Foot the Bill for Higher Risk Borrowers

It is disheartening to think that those of us who have worked hard to maintain good credit scores will now be penalized with higher mortgage rates and fees, just so the government can subsidize people with riskier credit ratings. It’s no surprise that the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA) new rule forcing homebuyers with good credit scores to pay higher mortgage rates and fees is causing a stir. The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s push for affordable housing is admirable, but it should not come at the expense of those with good credit scores who are trying to buy or refinance...

Canadian Banks Will Exploit Gutted U.S. Mortgage Underwriting 13

Canadian Banks Will Exploit Gutted U.S. Mortgage Underwriting

Canadian banks see the newly dismantled underwriting safeguards and risk-shedding experiments at Fannie and Freddie as a way to keep the party going, with the risk passed along to the U.S. taxpayer directly… Canada’s banks are in trouble. Their mortgage portfolios are filled with time-bombs called “fixed-payment” mortgages. Despite the name, the loans contain rate-hike triggers that are causing payment shocks for borrowers. High interest rates and falling home values mean borrowers north of the border aren’t able to refinance out of these toxic mortgages. Short sellers are even targeting one Canadian bank, Toronto-Dominion Bank, better known as TD Bank....

Sale Price versus Appraised Value Disconnect 8

Sale Price vs Appraised Value Disconnect

How can it be said that valuing a property lower than its eventual sale price based on current market evidence is tantamount to BIAS?  The article titled “FHFA Data Fueling Looks into Appraisal Bias” was in the Inside Mortgage Finance Publications e-newsletter on 4/06/23. The Federal Housing Finance Agency is a is a critical provider of the data necessary for oversight, enforcement and research, FHFA Director Sandra Thompson noted during a discussion in late March. According to aggregate statistics from the Uniform Appraisal Dataset released by the FHFA, roughly 57% of appraisals were above the contract price in 2021. Just...

ASA Concerned About the Expansion of FNMA Appraisal Waiver Program 22

ASA Concerned About the Expansion of FNMA Appraisal Waiver Program

In response to the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA) decision to allow Fannie Mae to expand its appraisal waiver program, the American Society of Appraisers (ASA) has released an op-ed by ASA’s Strategic Partnership Officer, John D. Russell, JD, criticizing this move. ASA believes that by expanding the appraisal waiver program and relying on data and models for mortgage lending instead of human interaction, Fannie Mae is leaving behind two very important aspects: safety and soundness as well as consumer protection. The fear is that overvaluation may occur due to a reliance on models which always try to chase value...

xml sitemap
blank