Respectfully recourse loans also worked very well in the 1970’s (when I first sold real estate); With Lincoln S&L there were problems which is why we wound up with licensing or appraisers. My belief is that FIRREA and licensing worked quite well for the most part with notable exceptions being Countrywides landsafe and WAMU.

HVCC came out as a settlement with one states AG (Cuomo) whereas criminal prosecution of the guilty parties would have worked much better. Instead, we buried the problems and hid the bad appraisers. How can you have 90% to 95% of all appraisals reviewed rated as deficient to egregiously deficient and not do anything to those that signed the more than 250,000 appraisals; or those that suborned fraud?

Again respectfully UTB, the escalation started before the ink was dry on FIRREA. The ORIGINAL drafts called for 1/10 field reviews and diminimus limit proposed was $25,000 not the $250,000 that was adopted.

I agree that all of us in BOTH parties have not held our pols accountable for the backroom dealing and erosion of necessary protections. I personally refuse to vote for a politician that’s been in office more than 8 years.

Their was fraud, cheating, steeling, etc, however most of this was taken care of by the justice system.

Legislators, needed more housing, more responsible citizens, Johnson cited a need for greater Home ownership, (we were below 60% at that time, we expanded to 65%, and then shrunk back). The new lending rules made No one responsible, not even the Government. Fannie & Freddie were quasi gov. organizations with the Corp. taking responsible. Then the Stuf. escalated

Our Pols. illustrated their level of competence and we did not hold them responsible.

Who is guilty?

Even after the collapse, TARP was not necessary! That was the beauty of the theft orchestrated by Paulson.

Example;

(1) Congress could have just as easily passed emergency legislation taking control of the toxic assets portfolios and telling ALL investors and insurers that if they wanted ANY government help against future loss, they had to agree to this. No bank, no investor, no insurer, not even FNMA or anyone else had the legal authority to renegotiate or revise the 2% Option ARMs that caused this when their rates reset. Only the American Congress had that authority.

(2) They could have passed emergency legislation declaring that all loans in the bundled securities funds would be frozen at the 2% rate until the market could be stabilized… even if that took years.

(3) NO taxpayer money had to be spent for TARP, and very very few foreclosures ever had to take place. Very few. There were two ways of putting out the ‘Fire’ of the collapse.

One way would have cost little; protected home owners and losses and allowed the economy to readjust and stabilize  relatively easily; and the other way granted huge windfall profits at taxpayer expense while giving cover to the criminals that caused it.

Instead we overlooked the root causes and chose to treat only selected, meaningless symptoms with snake il (like HVCC)

A lot like right now. “It’s deja vu all over again!” FIRREA has failed.

Its been chipped away at too far for too long. Regulators and Congress Members know this. There is already legislation in the works.

Part of it may well be partisan, and anti Dodd Frank (weak as THAT law is its the only one giving appraisers ANY pretense of fair treatment). We need to try to avoid the partisan aspects of whatever is being proposed as replacement, and make sure ALL the concerns we’ve been forced to learn about over the past 8 years from school of hard knocks are adequately covered.

Our regulators are not asleep. We KNOW some have heard the message. Congressman Hensarling has repeated several times that it is past time for FNMA and Freddie to be cut loose. He is right.

I don’t know enough about the alternative legislation he’s suggested we support from one of his colleagues… but we all need to find out what it is.

We all need to try to keep legislators on both sides from reducing this to a purely partisan issue. If we focus on the appraisal related issues we should be able to do so. Please do NOT allow them to side step meaningful reform (or in our case preservation) by partisan deflection.

We also need to get them on record as saying no more bailouts AND the next time it happens Board Chairmen will be among those going to jail.

Thats nice to know Jim, but not sure its always been that way. I stopped using Buzz when I had to wait to post a comment; subject to censorship. If you have changed that policy, my compliments, but past actions of A Buzz are hard to forget and reputations are earned in the long haul – not awarded  based on one recent change.

The more open you folks are ad the easier you make it to post, the more regular appraisers will visit there. Its a simple formula.

I met a young attorney who is with the AG’s office last night at a holiday party. We got to talking about the appraisal profession. I pulled up the article on AMC Buzz and showed it to her. She could not believe what she read and asked how could anyone be that ignorant to advertise you suggested fraud and then distribute it? She asked me about CRN and what it was. She stated and I quote, ” The DOJ needs to be alerted to this. An investigation of CRN is warranted based on that article alone.”

I really like how this guy Jim Morrison is trying to back pedal. “give a quote or clear up any misconceptions before you publish” This guy is seriously confused or maybe Appraisal Buzz just likes to embarrass themselves. Appraisers know exactly what CRN is. Hence, no appraisers are part of it. Perhaps Appraisal Buzz should actually read the articles they want to publish, then spend some time thinking about what they just read. Thank you for the good laugh Jim Morrison!

I dont use Abuzz for all the reasons cited above, but mostly because I do not want a separate login requirement to enable censoring or “moderating.” Its just my preference.

With the appraisers forum having become completely not functional with a biased owner who censors at will, this blogs site is the only way to go.  It is literally the only place where appraisers can blog in public without fear, without censorship and without bias applied by site owners or advertisers.

Bill,

I myself would like to hear from more appraisers interactions with Appraisal Buzz. Seeking the truth here. Me personally I like the format here on Appraisal Blogs due to the fact we know AMC/Lenders peruse sites like these and some of us are cautious of the possibility of being blacklisted just for telling of our bad dealings with them or even opinions. Appraisal Blogs knows the track of all persons posting and do a great job ferreting out posers. Guess what Jim my Facebook page does not have my real name on it. Also, Bill you didn’t do any of those things Jim stated above did you? It sounds to me more like they can’t take any criticism over there. HAHA Another thing try and tell Appraisal Buzz to stop sending their magazine I did not ask for and they don’t make it easy. Before taking it from mail box to trash I looked and couldn’t find anywhere inside to request that.

What about persons whom care about ethics and thusly refuse to participate in that platform, ripe with unethical accusations worldwide?  Can’t you just run it like this site with validated logins?  Facebook has nothing to do with real estate.  Geesh.

Bill,

We actually did change the policy over a year ago. We decided that if people were willing to attach their real names to their comments through their linked facebook accounts we would allow them to say what they like. The only things we will not allow are cursing, foul language, and personally insulting our authors. We encourage all to participate in the comments section of our Appraisal Buzz articles.

As it relates to deleting comments on your site Jim Morrison, I beg to differ. Its been some time back, but in having a lengthy back and forth with Joan Trice within the comment section relating to the article of the day, my comments (dozens of them) were later permanently deleted. Perhaps your company only has a selective deleting commenting policy.

Seek the truth.

Yes, it appears there is a pencil tool to run what they feel is ‘corrected’ data, likely to trick the score.  In technical terms this is known as a process work around.  In copy write terms that would be known as unauthorized changes to someone elses work.

Did you read the last part;  FM will train the MIs to understand the appraisal data & CU feedback.  Note the MIs have agreed not to use CU’s risk scores, findings and other output as the sole bases for (now pay attention because this is what will happen), refuse coverage, rescission cancellation claim denial, claim curtailment, and premium increases.

Read up on rescission, that’s new to me.  Please someone chime in with insurability commentary.  https://mi.archcapgroup.com/MI-Origination/Master-Policy-Information-Center/Rescission-Summary

No! You’re right, it doesn’t.

This is really troublesome. What are they basing these changes on? Looks like Fannie decided that appraisers’ observations & facts don’t matter much anymore.

So Fannie is now allowing lenders to change appraisers’ data and Mr Simmons is suggesting that Fannie/Freddie pick another value if “the single point of value that an appraiser defines doesn’t quite work for the best loan pricing”.

Inmates are indeed in charge of this asylum!

I glanced at a list of their “members” and realized that I had fired most of them years ago. What a waste of time, why do they even get press.

John J Anonymous,

No one has deleted any of the comments on the Appraisal Buzz website. They are all still there. You just have to post with your linked Facebook account. As long as you are willing to put your name behind your words on the Appraisal Buzz we welcome all input.

Also, we are always willing to give a quote. Next time please reach out and we would be happy to clear up any errors and misconceptions you may have before you publish. We publish articles authored by all members of the appraisal industry. We are always accepting submissions at comments@appraisalbuzz.com.

Jim Morrison
Appraisal Buzz