Appraiserfest movement has your back (and teeth). After an amazing Appraiserfest conference in San Antonio, I had to have an emergency root canal. So for protection, I wore my Appraiserfest t-shirt and all went well. Proof positive that the Appraiserfest movement has your back (and teeth).   What The Appraiserfest 2018 Conference Happening Meant I can’t speak for each attendee at the San Antonio happening but I can say what it meant to me: A big thanks to Phil Crawford, Mark Skapinetz and Lori Noble for making the dream happen! There was LOVE everywhere – I can’t tell you how...

An appraiser shared this email from a mortgage underwriter: I saw you called a few days ago and I apologize as I have been very busy. If you can just email back notes as to why your not changing value or you can input notes into the appraisal. This can give the borrower a better understanding why the appraisal is low. If your updating value; that is find too.” My response to the appraiser: “Good grief. The Appraisal already explains why the value is the value in the report to your client – the bank. The lender is the one...

Over the past several weeks, there has been a slew of thought-provoking pieces on the financial crisis of ten years ago. There are so many varying views on what happened and what caused it. It was such a systemic event that ten years later, there are strong opinions on the cause and the lessons learned and not learned. I’ve always looked at it from a valuation/mortgage/credit standpoint since that has been my business orientation. I saw the events roll out from my perspective, but I only saw a sliver of what the crisis represented. Mortgage brokers I knew that thrived...

Warning: lots of “spirited” inside jokes abound. No offense to the cows I’ve met in my lifetime (none are on a first name basis with me). When an institution has “spirit” it is all about the lowest bid and fastest turn time…period. Clerical staff usually makes the choice when institutions (with spirit) treat their appraisers whose spirit has been crushed, like this. In looking at this particular request, here’s what I find — we uploaded the request around 11:30 yesterday. The “huddle” on Appraisal Shield pushes each request out to an appraiser about once an hour — I did a...

His legacy of his Landsafe AMC still lives today within CoreLogic… During the housing bubble, I remember thinking about how BofA had avoided the systemic insanity of lending that overtook most mortgage lenders including banks like Washington Mutual… and then they bought Countrywide and all hell broke loose. From the appraisal perspective, I observed them incorporate the Countrywide’s Landsafe Appraisal Management Company into the mix and all of a sudden, they took half of the appraisal fee and applied military-like rules such as 48-hour turn times and 19-year-olds chewing gum who followed long checklists without regard for local market knowledge....

The State of North Dakota Along With Their Banking Lobby, Applies For a Waiver This just came in so I will expand on this post in the future, but here is what we know. The governor has submitted a request to the Appraisal Subcommittee for an appraisal waiver but the letter seems more orientated towards raising the de minimus which just occurred. By the way, isn’t it apparent that the banking lobby is a little to cozy with the Governor’s office to actually cosign this letter? The letter also makes references to the lack of rural appraisers as a long-term...