Collateral Underwriter "suggested Comparables"

[Eli]

I know, but look at the gamers the system has by their toenails. Some won't keep their toenails regardless of their pedigree. They will be missing a few toenails or all toenails in some cases. Without any toenails, there is nothing to hold them. Some are toast. The writing is on the wall.

 

[Eli]

UAD/CU has the whole bigger than the parts for a change. It is because they are under heat, and passing the heat on based on facts. Trust me that we don't know all the facts.

 

[KJames]

Tim said < Why would any honest and competent appraiser have a problem with attempts to identify and weed out those who provide unsupported and/or fraudulent appraisals?

Sorry for reaching back so far but I thought this was worth commenting on. I don't think the problem many of us have is with "weeding out" bad appraisers, but that this scattergun approach is yet another in a long line of recent additional requirements piled on appraisers over the past several years, with almost certainly no commensurate increase in fees. I've read how some claim this won't add much time to completing reports, but it seems highly unlikely that researching and then commenting on 20 additional comps and presenting and explaining matched pair or regression analysis or cost approach derived adjustments, and taking the time to explain why my adjustments/comps don't match those of every other independent appraiser,...... won't take quite a bit of additional time.

Though I've usually kept pretty busy my annual income peaked many years ago due to the increased demands of SOW from lenders and AMCs. Some here simplistically say, "well, just charge more!" The problem is that when I do that, I don't get work. I'm afraid as an appraiser I can't share your rosy outlook. I'm just glad that I'm in my 29th year of doing this rather than just getting into the profession.

 

[Rich LeMond]

< Why would any honest and competent appraiser have a problem with attempts to identify and weed out those who provide unsupported and/or fraudulent appraisals?

I think there's a pretty good line in the sand here between the AG appraiser armchair commenter with no skin in the game, and the guys who actually have to deal with running a residential appraisal business. The answer to your question is that they are going after a mosquito with a shotgun. The collateral damage is yet more wasted time for the honest ones struggling to get through the day and pay the bills. The other part of the equation is that, based on my review work it is just so incredibly easy to spot the scandalous appraisals, and we already have USPAP in terms of teeth. So basically they are taking something that should be very straightforward (weeding out the worst appraisers and sending them to enforcement) and making it into a huge complicated mess. My instinct tells me that they are not that stupid, and there is much more to CU than just weeding out bad appraisers.

 

[Eli]

I think there's a pretty good line in the sand here between the AG appraiser armchair commenter with no skin in the game, and the guys who actually have to deal with running a residential appraisal business. The answer to your question is that they are going after a mosquito with a shotgun. The collateral damage is yet more wasted time for the honest ones struggling to get through the day and pay the bills. The other part of the equation is that, based on my review work it is just so incredibly easy to spot the scandalous appraisals, and we already have USPAP in terms of teeth. So basically they are taking something that should be very straightforward (weeding out the worst appraisers and sending them to enforcement) and making it into a huge complicated mess. My instinct tells me that they are not that stupid, and there is much more to CU than just weeding out bad appraisers.

It is bigger than just the bad appraisers and they are going after more than them, not so much in a shotgun approach in some ways, but more of a water hose approach in some ways, or a threatening approach to reveal more of what bad evidence they have. Unskilled or low skilled labor/management is part of the problem and they know it. I know it and I don't have near the evidence they do. Maybe their actions will bring out the big guns.

 

[Eli]

Skilled and unbiased labor/management costs money. They know it better than anybody because they have the proof. I think that is what they are trying to convince the world of in some ways. And they have only revealed a drop of their knowledge (proof) to the public. Just think what they might have revealed to bigger guns already.

 

[Mike Seward]

and 9.5 out of every 10 appraisers should take offence that fannie in a round about way accused appraisers of violating USPAP and not making the correct market reaction adjustments.

This may have been stated before, but, if I have 4 reasonable comps and choose to use only 3 in my report, proximity and date of sale being similar, I'm going to "throw out" the comp requiring the largest gross and/or net adjustments because by definition, it is the least similar to the subject.

I would think the appraiser would use a sale requiring very high adjustments only when there were no other sales available.

 

[Eli]

The govt is finally showing their teeth. You know what usually happens after teeth are shown. lol

 

[Rich LeMond]

Not sure if you can call FNMA the government, they are more like a government step child.

I just appraised a high-end $3M home yesterday. The owner was kind enough to offer me the prior appraisal. Under "Additional Features" and "Describe the Condition of the Property" the appraiser wrote one word: "Standard". Tell me again how CU is getting rid of the bad appraisers?

 

[huntercharlie]

Zero, Zilch, Nada, Nothing

Fannie Mae (and Freddie Mac) have already paid more money back to the federal treasury in the form of preferred dividends than it received during the bailout, so taxpayers have made a profit on the bailout. The federal government disbursed ~$187 billion to bail out the GSE's and the GSE's so far have paid back ~$225 billion, making for a tidy $38 billion profit for the taxpayers which will continue to increase as treasury will continue to receive a nice 10% preferred dividend for the foreseeable future.
http://projects.propublica.org/bailout/list

Additionally, the workers at Fannie were simply paid the salaries that were owed to them for the work they did an continue to do. They obviously continue to have jobs at Fannie because Fannie was not allowed to fail by the government, but most of the people I know working on CU and the UCDP would have little trouble finding good jobs elsewhere.

It is more than a little bit ironic that a residential appraiser would question whether Fannie employees are beneficiaries of the government bailout of the GSE's when most of the income made by a typical residential appraiser is due to the demand for appraisals generated by GSE, FHA, and VA requirements. I wonder how much work you and most other residential appraisers would have been left with the past 7 or 8 years if the government had simply let GSE's go under and let the entire secondary mortgage market system in this country collapse (the answer is not much). I also wonder how much less work most residential appraisers would have had over the past few years if not for several refinance runs that would not have occurred if the Fed had not subsidized mortgage rates through multiple rounds of quantitative easing (QE). Whether or not one thinks that the GSE bailouts and QE were good policy, few benefited more from these programs as a group than residential appraisers.

"few benefited more from these programs as a group than residential appraisers.[/QUOTE]"

You're kidding, right?