HVCC

The Working RE HVCC Appraiser Talkback Survey has been posted and so far you’ve provided some pretty interesting results. Working RE plans to collect survey data all year and hopes you have much to share, post HVCC, about the state of the profession from your perspective. Theywill collect and share the data openly with you and with regulators and other interested parties. It’s a chance for appraisers to come together as a group, speak with one voice and be heard.

As we've written several times before, the HVCC provided ample incentive for mortgage brokers and appraisers to become allies united behind a common cause. Since we single-handedly bore the cost of raising awareness among appraisers and mortgage brokers about the HVCC last year, we were happy to find afterward that the National Association of Mortgage Brokers (NAMB) recognized the difficulty in what we did, and wanted to cooperate and consult on HVCC issues. Eventually, NAMB decided to take the battle to the courts, but withdrew the lawsuit after the government claimed its actions as conservators of Fannie and Freddie are not subject to judicial review (even though, obviously, the HVCC was started prior to the government bailout). As a last-ditch effort, NAMB asked us if we would distribute their "Follow Up Call to Action" to our appraiser list nationwide, which we're happy to do for them. We encourage you to…

Whenever there’s an economic downturn, crime goes up. The explanation is pretty simple: When money is flowing freely and jobs are plentiful, the risks of getting caught engaging in a crime outweigh the rewards. But when money dries up and jobs disappear, local police departments consistently report that crimes of almost all types rise, and especially those involving any sort of potential financial gain.

With each issue of The AppraisalPress, we find ourselves discussing how dramatically things have changed in the short span since the last issue. While we originally thought we'd be dealing with a rapid comment-and-revision cycle on the proposed HVCC a year ago, we never envisioned it dragging out this long (the "final" HVCC takes effect May 1st), nor did we think there would be so much chaos and tumult along the way. It's an understatement to say that things have been out of control. It's certainly made our jobs harder, but even more importantly, it's made yours almost completely unpredictable.

The new federal regulations aren’t necessarily worse than the HVCC, but they aren’t better either. The huge built-in loopholes prevent them from actually having any beneficial effect in reducing lender pressure, but they also make them somewhat irrelevant since they can be so arbitrarily applied. Here is our response to these regulations.

Too many appraisers mistake a website as a mere yellow pages ad or online billboard when the reality is a website should also play a key role in how you service your clients and run your business. Since we’re smack dab in the middle of our 23rd successful year in business, let’s point out 23 ways an XSite will help you be successful, too.

In speeches, articles, and memos over the years, I've frequently pointed out one of my pet peeves: Appraisers tend to think only about filling out forms, and not about running a real business. It's like the business is a passive activity. A couple of years ago, to help our customers take those blinders off, we developed what we call "the wheel".

Collateral management platform provider FNC, Inc. has been battling appraisers on a number of fronts lately. From federal court, to state appraisal boards, to the court of public opinion, the company behind appraisal delivery system AppraisalPort has been on defense against appraisers concerned about the integrity of their work product and their potential legal liability.

On October 20th, 2002 at the Mortgage Bankers Association's 89th Annual Convention & Expo, a small group of us from a la mode rolled a wicked looking stainless steel Harley Davidson V-Rod into the convention hall of the Hyatt Regency in Chicago.

It’s been my experience that originators look at the process of ordering, reviewing, and receiving appraisals as inefficient. The problem isn’t appraisers, however, who are on the leading edge of mortgage technology. Lenders don’t seem to take advantage of technology to decrease the inefficient, often manual, processes. Despite readily available technology, many originators and AMCs do it the hard way — fax or e-mail the appraiser an order, call daily for status, request the appraisal via e-mail and hope it gets to them, call again if it doesn’t, call again if there are questions about the report, and then manually type the information from the appraisal into the loan software. Later, if there’s a question and the originator can’t find the PDF, they call the appraiser again for a copy. Sound familiar?

New form for appraisers using Mercury takes important step toward HVCC compliance.

Radio Show: Dave Biggers and Marco Ruiz appear again on the My Technology Lawyer Radio show to discuss changes to the HVCC, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the upcoming US Presidential Election.

Radio Show: Dave Biggers and Marco Ruiz appeared October 8 on "My Technology Lawyer" radio show to continue the discussion on the HVCC and the $700b government bailout.

On Thursday, September 25, on response to questions posed during a congressional hearing regarding oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, James Lockhart, former director of OFHEO and now director of the new Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) which replaced it, told the House Financial Service Committee that implementing the HVCC agreement has "taken us longer than we expected". Lockhart told the committee that the January 1 implementation deadline may be delayed one to three months and that potential changes to the agreement are still being worked out. There was no word as to what those changes may be.

Radio Show: Dave Biggers has appeared again on "My Technology Lawyer" radio show to discuss the HVCC and the $700b government bailout.

Radio Show: Dave Biggers and Marco Ruiz (RuizAppraising.com) recently appeared on the "My Technology Lawyer" radio show to talk about the HVCC.

The real estate market, and the appraisal industry specifically, has been in unprecedented upheaval during this correction, especially in these last few months. Every time you think you’ve seen it all, another bombshell comes along to rattle what you thought was your strong understanding...

In this newspaper’s inaugural edition, we covered several problems in the AI XML standard and the way it’s managed (April 2008, "Paying To Use Your Own Bathroom: AI XML"). At the time of the original publication, there was already an inquiry underway by the Virginia Real Estate Appraiser Board into the Appraisal Institute/AI Ready/FNC/AppraisalPort scheme, triggered by a petition demanding that the board ban the use of appraisal portals which have not provided sufficient evidence that "ensures the integrity and unadulterated transmission of appraisal reports".