Category: Trending

What’s trending now and what was trending in the past on AppraisersBlogs – Discover and discuss developing and trending stories on the latest news, ideas and perspectives happening now and in the past in our industry

Cert 25 Dilemma: TAF Abdicates Its Role as Ethics Arbiter 18

Cert 25 Dilemma: TAF Abdicates Its Role as Ethics Arbiter

We finally have a direct written response from The Appraisal Foundation regarding the Cert 25 confidentiality crisis and it is a masterclass in bureaucratic buck passing. A peer recently contacted TAF to ask how appraisers can remain compliant with the USPAP Ethics Rule while signing a form that opens the floodgates for data distribution. TAF basically hid under their desks. They claimed they cannot give legal advice and told us that questions about Cert 25 are best suited for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac since they built the form. Then they dropped this standard canned line to try and brush...

ACI / Appraisal / Appraisal News / Appraisal Organizations / Appraisal Software / Appraisers News

Certification 25 and the Quiet Breach of Appraiser Confidentiality 65

Certification 25 and the Quiet Breach of Appraiser Confidentiality

Certification 25 made me realize that my refusal to participate in UAD 3.6 was justified long before I even knew what was buried in its certifications. A peer sent me Phil Crawford’s new podcast episode this morning, and I opened it without thinking much of it because I had assumed his retirement from the show meant he was done weighing in on industry developments. I have been following the news and the chatter around 3.6, but I haven’t been preparing for it. I have not taken any UAD 3.6 classes, have not attended any seminars, have not tested the form,...

Appraisal / Appraisal News / Appraisal Organizations / Appraisers News / The Appraisal Foundation / Trending

Who Controls Access in UAD 3.6 31

Who Controls Access in UAD 3.6

Access has become the most expensive word in the appraisal industry, a reminder that every new “solution” seems to cost appraisers more while giving them less control.  Today’s Tom Sawyer, he gets high on you, and the space he invades, he gets by on you. Those words feel strangely appropriate as the appraisal profession moves into UAD 3.6. The new appraisal environment is not simply a revised form. It is a data-rich, data-driven system built around large amounts of property information being routed directly into appraisal software. Matrix MLS systems already exchange structured data through API-based pathways using standards such...

Appraisal / Appraisal News / Appraisal Software / Appraisal Technology / Appraisers News / Trending

The 3.6 Rollout: Chaos Now, Clarity Later? 54

The 3.6 Rollout: Chaos Now, Clarity Later?

The 3.6 rollout has raised more questions than answers, leaving the industry navigating a landscape that remains unclear.  UAD 3.6 has dominated the appraiser conversation on LinkedIn, yet the irony is that almost nobody truly understands it. That isn’t the fault of appraisers. Even the most experienced professionals and the people positioned as “3.6 experts” have more questions than answers. I recently listened to a panel of appraisers I respect immensely, and even they acknowledged the gaps. The truth is simple: people may be preparing for 3.6, but nobody is fully ready. Admitting that doesn’t make anyone less competent. It...

Appraisal / Appraisal News / Appraisers News / Trending / UAD / Uniform Appraisal Dataset

If The Management Model Is So righteous, Spread It Around 26

If the Management Model Is So righteous, Spread It Around

If the management model were truly noble, it would not stop at appraisers. Yet somehow the babysitting service never expands beyond us.  Once upon a time there was a profession that stood between the public and chaos. For forty five years I watched that profession take every punch the mortgage world could invent. Every market dip, every delayed closing, every regulatory shift, every headline looking for a villain landed on the appraiser. We carried it because we understood the role. We were the guardrail. But when the word racist became fashionable, that was the breaking point. Appraisers were already the...

AMC / Appraisal / Appraisal Management Companies / Appraisal News / Appraisers News / Trending

It’s Time to Take Out the Junk: AMC Practices Exposed 42

It’s Time to Take Out the Junk: AMC Practices Exposed

Appraisers have spent years carrying the weight of broken AMC practices, and this article pulls every one of those practices into the sunlight so the profession can finally take out the junk. “Evil AMCs thrive not only through active malice, but also through the silence and inaction of those appraisers who could intervene.” — Edmund Burke… if he had been an appraiser It’s a conversation we’ve all had before: “I’ve already got all my information entered. I’m used to the system. I don’t want to learn a new process. I guess I’ll just keep paying the extra couple of dollars...

AMC / Appraisal / Appraisal Management Companies / Appraisal News / Appraisers News / Trending

First the Borrower Fee. Now the Appraiser Compensation in Court 33

First the Borrower Fee. Now the Appraiser Compensation in Court

Two lawsuits place Class Valuation’s fee transparency and staff-appraiser compensation practices under federal scrutiny. Most appraisal disputes examine only one part of the transaction. Two pending lawsuits involving Class Valuation, LLC approach the appraisal process from opposite directions. One asks whether staff appraisers were properly compensated for overtime. The other asks whether a homeowner was properly informed about how an appraisal-related fee was divided. The cases are legally separate. They involve different plaintiffs, statutes, and courts, and neither has produced a finding that Class Valuation violated the law. Viewed together, however, they raise a question the appraisal profession has asked...

AMC / Appraisal / Appraisal Management Companies / Appraisal News / Appraisers News / Trending

When Solidifi Tried to Silence Samnick 44

When Solidifi Tried to Silence Samnick

David Samnick has spent years warning that the AMC model would eventually expose its own contradictions. He is a Georgia appraiser, a long time critic of AMC practices, and the author of Mein Comp: The Last Appraiser, a book that traces how independence in the profession was eroded year after year by expanding corporate control. Samnick walked away from mortgage work two years ago, stopped accepting AMC assignments entirely, and now works only for private clients. He has never completed an assignment for Clear Capital. Yet despite having no active relationship with Solidifi and no reliance on their panel, he...

AMC / Appraisal / Appraisal Management Companies / Appraisal News / Appraisers News / Solidifi

Property Valuation and the Future of Data Collection 32

Property Valuation and the Future of Data Collection

Property valuation is shifting fast, and the push to regulate who collects the data inside people’s homes will determine whether the process stays accurate, safe and trustworthy.  Property data collection has quietly become one of the most consequential shifts in modern real estate, reshaping how lenders, AMCs and national platforms gather the information that ultimately determines a homeowner’s equity, a buyer’s loan terms and the integrity of the appraisal process itself. Yet most consumers have no idea who is actually walking through their home, measuring rooms, photographing conditions or documenting features. In many states, the answer is startling: no license,...

Appraisal / Appraisal News / Appraisal Organizations / Appraisers News / Trending / Virginia Real Estate Appraiser Board

The Appraisal Fee Lawsuit AMCs Deserve 60

The Appraisal Fee Lawsuit AMCs Can’t Outrun

The class action lawsuit filed against CrossCountry Mortgage and Class Valuation arrives at a moment when many in the appraisal profession have grown tired of watching Appraisal Management Companies (AMCs) drain the industry from the inside. Appraisers have described AMCs as unnecessary middlemen who inflate fees, hide their cuts, interfere with the work, and contribute nothing of substance. This case finally puts those practices into the record with a level of clarity that appraisers have been waiting for. The complaint describes how borrowers are charged appraisal fees that often exceed one thousand dollars, yet the appraiser receives only a fraction...

AMC / Appraisal / Appraisal Management Companies / Appraisal News / Appraisers News / Customary & Reasonable Fees