TAF Spent $1.4M Of Appraiser’s Hard-earned Money On Lobbying Fees 6

What Are They Lobbying For?

TAF spent $1.4 million dollars lobbying over the past four years using the revenue they take in from appraisers… To set the stage of the complete disdain for the appraisal industry and the public trust… In the 2019 TAF 990 Filing, and based on the assumption their compensation has increased in the last three years, the two leaders of TAF, Dave & Kelly, run a 12 employee entity and make a staggering ± $750,000 annually. No wonder they don’t want to accept grant money to enable oversight in a not-for-profit! But it gets worse… TAF spent $1.4 million dollars lobbying...

TAF is Making Appraisers Pay to be Misleading 9

TAF Charging for Misleading Classes

From the organization that brought you the bat-shit crazy letter and the chickenshit letter, they are charging for classes that are misleading. ASC just sent a letter to state appraiser regulatory officials pointing out that the USPAP update course is factually inaccurate and puts appraisers in legal jeopardy if they follow it. Letter From Jim Park, Director ASC to State Appraiser Regulatory Officials: 2022-2023 7-Hour National USPAP Update Course The letter references findings and recommendations found in the already presented report 6 months ago: Identifying Bias and Barriers, Promoting Equity: An Analysis of the USPAP Standards and Appraiser Qualifications Criteria This is the meat & potatoes...

Corelogic Take on Appraisal Overvaluation 10

Corelogic Take on Appraisal Overvaluation

The results of this 2021 white paper: Appraisal overvaluation: Evidence of price adjustment bias in sales Comparisons co-authored by Frank Nothaft are pretty interesting. At first glance, I get the CoreLogic evil empire stuff, but step back and take it all in. Here’s the abstract. Home appraisal came under scrutiny for contributing to the home-price bubble and enabling the origination of risky mortgages that led to the post-2006 foreclosure crisis. Subsequent regulations tried to minimize or eliminate conflicts of interest and improve valuations. Nonetheless, our study of appraisals completed in 2015 and 2016 find that appraisal bias still occurred. Our...

USPAP Absurdity - Zero Value to Appraisers or the Public 29

USPAP Absurdity

From one of my appraiser colleagues in NYC on a McKissock class, taught by Dan Bradley, husband of Michelle Bradley who is chair of the Appraisal Standards Board of The Appraisal Foundation (this is COMPLETELY UNETHICAL). TAF BOT (the leadership that brought us the bat-shit crazy letter) is meeting in sunny Palm Springs San Diego right at this moment (probably to determine meanings of words like “The” and “This” and “That” and perhaps considering a new take on “misleading” that is still on the books!!!, of course, I realize that’s for the ASB to decide but please allow me some...

TAF Conflates Real Estate Appraisers with Appraisers 9

TAF Conflates Real Estate Appraisers with Appraisers

Why do I take the time to mention “real estate appraisers” and “real estate appraisals?” instead of just “appraisers” and “appraisals”? Personal property appraisers and business appraisers aren’t required by any state to follow USPAP, don’t pay anything for licensing and certification fees to any state, and are not subject matter experts on anything to do with real estate at all, ever. But… the Appraisal Standards Board and Appraiser Qualifications Board are chock a block full of non-real estate appraisers. Didn’t TAF/ASC arise from problems in the real estate profession? Was it ever the intent of the original remit for...

ALOFT = “A Lack of Freaking Talent” - Appraisers Blogs 7

ALOFT = “A Lack of Freaking Talent”

When I read the announcement that Fifth Wall funded a relatively new startup called ALOFT, I and many of my peers were confused on what the value proposition actually is. Backed by a VC, including some of the biggest… In addition to Fifth Wall, Aloft’s backers include VC firms Andreessen Horowitz and MetaProp, Zillow and Pacaso co-founder Spencer Rascoff, Built CEO Chase Gilbert and Doordash executive Gokul Rajaram. …means that this funding is very expensive for ALOFT but they are trying to disrupt a very low-margin industry. I thought of the following acronym translation, not aimed at the management team,...

Appraisers Are Ghosting AMCs? 62

Appraisers Are Ghosting AMCs?

From The Chrisman Commentary (Rob is a mortgage broker but an essential source of information on the mortgage industry). You can subscribe here. From Appraisals are near the top of any list of current lender and borrower complaints about the processing of mortgages. This week I received this note from Mike Simmons, Co-President of AXIS AMC. “I’ve heard of something overhanging the appraisal industry. Namely, that appraisers are ghosting (abandoning) orders and are beyond accountability. Part of my responsibility at AXIS Appraisal Management Solutions is to attend lender conferences and talk about the appraisal industry, and addressing difficult topics centered...

USPAP Definitions of 'His' and 'Her', The New ‘Misleading’ Debacle 23

USPAP Definitions of ‘His’ and ‘Her’

The USPAP Exposure Draft Process Continues To Step Outside Their Purpose With Her / Him as the new ‘Misleading’ Debacle The general idea of definitions added to USPAP was supposed to be industry-specific nomenclature. Because ASB doesn’t have policy writers nor does legal counsel review their work, we get a lot of garbage embedded into the document. And then it often gets removed because it was never correct, to begin with. This garbage in/out process is by design. There is no incentive for the technical boards (AQB, ASB) to get it right. This way USPAP can continue to be arbitrarily...

ASC Wants to Make USPAP Free 5

ASC Wants to Make USPAP Free!

The ASC Wants And Has The Funds To Make USPAP Free! And More! This press release is seismic for appraisers so please read it: Press Release: Appraisal Subcommittee (ASC) Board Approves Fiscal Year 2022 Budget of $9M including nearly $5M in Grant and Technical Assistance Funding With the context of TAF’s bat-shit crazy letter, here are some key changes in the relationship between TAF and ASC: ASC wants USPAP to be free, enable diversification of the ASB and AQB which are NOT diversified and never have been and they want to study alternatives to the insanely wasteful two-year USPAP update...

The Appraisal Foundation Is About To Get PAVEd 13

TAF Is About To Get PAVEd

The current administration is addressing the lack of diversity in housing valuation head-on with the formation of an interagency task force on Property Appraisal and Valuation Equity (PAVE). Here are the details of the PAVE Task Force. They just had their first meeting and this is a serious effort unlike the silliness of TAF’s bureaucratic actions of the past year that were nothing more than window dressing to the lack of diversity problem within the appraisal industry. Incidentally, The Appraisal Foundation is not part of PAVE Task Force. Keep that in mind when you read their bat-shit crazy letter again and think about the fact that...

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