Tagged: Zillow

Appraisal Report Going Public: Appraisals Posted on the Internet or MLS 11

Appraisal Report in MLS Listings

Your Appraisal Report Attached to a MLS Listing…. Private prelisting appraisals are a good revenue stream for many appraisers. Do your clients understand the intended use and intended users? Do you, the appraiser, understand the intended use and the intended users? We often get complacent and assume everyone understands, and then the unthinkable happens; you find your appraisal report attached to a MLS listing or worse, attached as a photo on Zillow. Yes, this actually is happening! On recent MLS listings, the following statements were found: “Offers accepted until… Owner reserves the right to accept or reject any/all offers –...

Fake Foreclosures Listed on Zillow - StopZillow - AppraisersBlogs 14

Zillow Fake Floreclosures

Zillow Lists "Fake Foreclosures"… We have all heard the term "Fake News" by now… We now have "Fake Foreclosures" According to a local TV station in the Grand Rapids Michigan area, Zillow is falsely posting homes were foreclosed on, when they were not. Are these posting an honest mistake? Or are they a planned maneuver to overtake the Real Estate Industry. Regardless of the answer, the owners of the property have been harmed and Zillow should be held accountable. See the story here or watch Target 8 investigation below. In Virginia, foreclosure and title transfers are public record. This information is available...

Zillow, The First "Agent Management Company" (AMC) for the Real Estate Agent 16

The First AMC for Agents

Zillow, The First "Agent Management Company" (AMC) for the Real Estate Agent Brokers and Agents, welcome to the appraisal world. Zillow is the first "Agent Management Company" (AMC) for your side of the Real Estate Industry. Yes you read that correctly. Zillow’s actions have many similarities to Appraisal Management Companies, so it is fair to say, they are the first "Agent Management Company" “Zillow is hurting the people you are licensed to protect” Doesn’t that sound very familiar to what appraisers have been saying about Appraisal Management Companies?  On the website www.stopzillow.com, Greg Hague, a Real Estate Attorney, Broker and...

Technology Forced Upon Appraisers Is About Money in AMC Pockets 37

Enough Already, Nobody is Listening

AMC technology is not about efficiency of the appraisal process… I am very tired of reading all the articles from appraisal management companies stating appraisers need to embrace new technologies and tools. Please stop telling me how to do my job! For the record, appraisers are professionally trained and licensed individuals. We use technology each and every day. We use analytical tools each and every day. Our most power tool, our brains, tells us most of these new technologies and analytical tools are pure garbage; not because the programs are flawed, but they do not have enough accurate data to...

Zillow Gone Wild 21

Zillow Gone Wild

Some very interesting news is surrounding Zillow… A lawsuit over Zestimates has now gone to a class action status. This will have rippling effects on each and every state and expand the liability to not only licensing, but privacy and consumer fraud. Read about this change here. Excerpt from the article titled “Class-action suit aims to halt Zestimates in Illinois”: “The Zestimates that Zillow posts are misleading and pose as accurate appraisals in violation of Illinois’ legal description of an appraisal, according to the complaint filed by three members of the Patel family and Schaumburg-based CastleBldrs.com. They claim homebuyers read...

Freddie Mac Criminal Aspects of Its Appraisal Free Mortgages 38

Freddie Mac Criminal Aspects of Its Appraisal Free Mortgages

Freddie Mac is opening itself up to over 150,000± potential individual lawsuits… This is a response from Mike Ford to Kenneth Harney’s article, “Freddie Mac planning appraisal-free mortgages”. I represent the American Guild of Appraisers, #44OPEIU, AFL-CIO, and the real estate appraisal-related consumer and taxpayer interests of our more than fifteen million± AFL-CIO members, retirees and their families. I’m prompted to write this open letter regarding your recent well written & researched article, titled “Freddie Mac planning appraisal free mortgages”. Regrettably, it was too brief to cover several additional critical aspects of the issue, but I assume the Chicago Tribune’s...

Automated Revolution Valuation Imposters 14

Automated Revolution, the Valuation Imposters

Along comes the automated valuation revolution… The appraisers we need, to keep consumers protected, are the very ones being driven out of the business. They are being forced out by big banks and AMCs (who much too often provide zero benefits to consumers). Everyone seems to have forgotten that these services (provided by AMCs) used to be part of the bank’s responsibility for every loan. It was just the cost of doing business. Then came the AMCs and banks’ profits had to go up. After all, they lost a whole department. Now they pass the expenses along, mostly on the...

AVMs can Never replace Appraisals 34

AVMs Can NEVER Replace Appraisals

AVMs Can NEVER Replace Appraisals & why FNMAs vaunted CU AVM is flawed! Yesterday (March 15, 2016), an appraiser called me to discuss a complex assignment he had. One of his comparable sales was reported in MLS as having sold for $3,469, 898. It was in range with his other comparable sales for his subject property. It was the most similar comparable property. When he went to verify the sale price with our Los Angeles, California subscription-equivalent to “public records” he discovered a shocking discrepancy he couldn’t explain. RealQuest (CoreLogic) showed the full value sale price as $17,665,455! So what...

What Does Your Appraisal Business Look Like in Three Years? 34

Your Appraisal Business in 3 Years?

What Does Your Appraisal Business Look Like in Three Years? If I were to ask you to paint an accurate picture of what your appraisal business looks like three years from today, could you do it? If you can’t answer this question, perhaps you are getting hung up on the word “accurate”. Any individual can guess what the future might look like, but can you make that prediction with some sentiment of reality? In an exercise such as this, it is easy to get paralyzed by so many unknowns that are outside of our control. What will the markets do?...

Bank profits - Get rid of appraisers 11

Bank Profits: Eliminate Appraisers

Zestimate Gone Wrong. It all comes down to money and profits…

Once again the Zestimate has a home-owner up in arms. In a small town in North Carolina a home just sold for $20,000. It was listed at $55,000, then reduced to $45,000, and finally sold in 2015 for $20,000. Safe to say it needed a little TLC.

It was a shell in need of, well everything. But, we have to remember that automated valuation services don’t know anything about condition or circumstances. Before the house was listed for sale, the owner (from a different state) thought they had inherited a nice little nest egg. Not a fortune, but if it was close to the Zestimate, they would have quite a nice amount to play with…

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