Tagged: FNMA

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...

Garbage Data In Means Garbage Results Out Every Time! 24

AVMs… Garbage In, Garbage Out

Garbage data in means garbage results out every time!  It’s no secret that AVMs have been a thorn in the side of real estate appraisers since they first came out. Despite all their bells and whistles, these automated valuation models still rely on inaccurate public records and often come up with wildly inaccurate home values. Unfortunately, some consumers don’t realize this until it’s too late – when reality comes crashing down from a local real estate professional after they’ve already gotten their hopes up about their home value thanks to an AVM. Yesterday, a Virginia assessor emailed us with an...

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...

Exactly How Are Property Data Collectors Professionally Trained? 17

Exactly How Are Property Data Collectors Professionally Trained?

Somebody explain to me exactly how Property Data Collectors are “professionally trained” per Fannie Mae directives. The fact is, Fannie Mae is explicitly working toward the elimination of appraisers for real property valuations. This is in their latest Selling Guide Announcement SEL-2023-02 to the Fannie Mae Selling Guide: Value acceptance + property data is a new option that utilizes property data collection by a third party who conducts interior and exterior data collection on the subject property. To ensure consumer protections, the lender must verify and be able to demonstrate that data collectors are vetted through an annual background check,...

Fannie Seeks Upstanding Invisibles for Long-Term Commitment 11

Fannie Seeks Upstanding Invisibles for Long-Term Commitment

Fannie’s big news about embracing the “invisibles,” under the pretext of helping the underserved, Fannie announced it had tweaked the knobs and dials on its impenetrable underwriting algorithm in order to fit “credit invisibles” for mortgages.  In the final scene of the 1990 mob masterpiece “Goodfellas,” wise guy Henry Hill recalls his life as he enters federal witness protection. “It was easy to disappear. My house was in my mother-in-law’s name. My cars were registered to my wife. My Social Security card and driver’s license were phony. I never voted. I never paid taxes. My birth certificate and my arrest...

Vote With Your Wallet. We Can’t Boycott the AMC Industry Twice 18

Vote With Your Wallet. We Can’t Boycott the AMC Industry Twice

Vote with your wallet. Vote with your feet. Vote with your time. Vote with your patronage. Vote with your clicks. Sorry to inform those who are seeking someone else to bail them out of this continued blatant abuse of power and ongoing racketeering enterprise known as Appraisal Management Companies (AMCs). We can’t boycott the AMC industry twice. It’s your turn now. And that’s the rub, it’s our industry, not some other groups industry. Without appraisers, there is no valuation services industry. The appraisal management groups presence is irrelevant unless appraisers choose to make the AMCs relevant with patronage. Each appraisers...

Why Are Fannie, Freddie Peddling Exotic Junk-Rated Risk Swaps? 5

Why Are Fannie, Freddie Peddling Exotic Junk-Rated Risk Swaps?

Meanwhile, cratering home prices are eroding demand for the junk-rated credit transfers.  As mortgage giants Fannie and Freddie bend the knee to their political overlords, they securitize ever riskier loans. It’s a sign of the times. But while no one was looking, the twins – who wield the full faith and credit of the U.S. government – began quietly offloading this surplus risk in the form of so-called “credit-risk transfers.” The U.S. taxpayer should be worried. As the public learned in 2008 with AIG’s credit-default swaps, hidden risk injected into the financial system doesn’t stay hidden for long. The twins,...

Smartphone Measuring Technology 15

Smartphone Measuring Technology

This new measuring technology claims the software to be ANSI compliant.  Appraisers, over the past couple of years, there have been lively discussions on forums, Facebook groups, at conferences, etc., about a ‘new’ technology which allows a ‘phone holder’ to measure a structure, with that technology providing a “Sketch” or “Floor Plan” of that structure. Some of you may have heard about one of the originating companies, Matterport, which some real estate agents/brokers use to generate virtual 3D interior diagrams and videos used in property marketing. Smartphone measuring technology evolved from that. Until recently, I and others did not understand...

DEI Bosses at Financial Institutions Have a Problem - Diversity 12

Top DEI Bosses Have a Problem – Diversity

The ranks of the new DEI bosses at the financial institutions are no more diverse than the appraisers their institutions see as the enemy. If the lack of diversity of appraisers is inherently bad, how could the same not be said for the DEI bosses?  A full 93 percent of U.S. birdwatchers are white. Just 4 percent are African-American and a paltry 1 percent are Asian-American. Just 5 percent are Hispanic (which includes both blacks and whites). This was according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as reported in National Geographic a number of years ago. Another study found...

Appraisers Are Historians...Tracking the Motivations of the Moment 19

Appraisers Are Historians

It is gratifying when appraisers are correct, and the AVMs burn; unless you invested in their stocks.  I mean no disrespect to the modelers of the Automated Valuation Models (AVMs) or to Zillow for relying on their AVMs. As an appraiser since the 80s, I have yet to find a computer that can tell me if I want vanilla or chocolate ice cream. Does the buyer want more acres, or less grass to cut? I will admit that a raised ranch, a two story farm house, a colonial, a split level, and a Dutch colonial can all sell for the...

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