Where Do You Think "geographic Competency" Begins And Ends?

[Joe Flacco]

I gotta tell you about working into the other client types. Those panels are almost closed. It is not easy to break 20+ year business relationships. I don't know if it really matters how good the work is up against a 20+ year business relationship. It's basically gotta wait for your turn.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

Qualifying standards should have been much higher

The "public" has no concept of trust nor qualifying standards. That is purely an invention of our own making.

every warm body that could fog a mirror got grandfathered in

Our state required every person to take classes and pass a test. Hours experience were based on prior work under the simple caveat that since USPAP did not exist as a requirement, reports were not required to be USPAP compliant prior to '92. You could only count compliant hours after Jan. 1,1992. And many of us therefore transitionally licensed, a far cry from "grandfathered" in many professions on affidavit without experience or education requirements.

 

[hastalavista]

Moody’s: Appraisal alternatives pose new credit risks
Could weaken credit quality of new RMBS
February 20, 2018

This is actually good news and has been consistent with what I've said before.
The "good news" is that the risk of the alternatives are being evaluated. Although the rating agencies' past* has been a bit checkered, so has everyone else associated with the mortgage meltdown (rightfully or wrongfully).

If these products are deemed more risky, then that risk will (or should) be baked into the terms/conditions of the loan.
You want a PIW or alternative? You only qualify under these conditions and within those conditions, your LTV is limited to X and/or your interest rate will be Y basis points higher.
Investors can decide if they want to purchase the riskier tranche or not; obviously, the riskier the tranche, the higher return they will demand (ergo, a higher interest rate to the consumer). Higher interest is one way to mitigate risk; another is to reduce the loan amount (and, there are more ways than those two).

The higher cost to the borrower if these types of transactions are riskier would, presumably, create a ceiling on how many of these types of transactions occur.

The danger is not in the type of valuation technique/process. The danger is, not identifying and pricing the risk of the transaction if the valuation technique creates a greater risk.

But let us face reality here: If the loan is such that the LTV is sub 50%, collateral risk may be so low that it doesn't matter.

Therefore, and again as I've said, the fight (the winnable and, from my perspective, legitimate) against these types of alternatives is not within the appraiser regulation (USPAP) arena, it is within the banking regulation (including securitization) arena.


* Some may have forgotten... when the rating agencies were hauled before lawmakers and were being sued, one of their defenses was that their ratings are simply "opinions" (just like appraisers). Part of the flack they caught was that some said for certain public transactions, they were required by regulation to rate the instrument (just like appraisers are required to perform appraisals for certain covered transactions) so because they were required, they should be held to a higher standard. However, a debt instrument doesn't need to be rated; it only needs to be rated to qualify for purchase by a certain investor-profile. Unrated securities typically pay a higher rate of return.
The similarities between the rating agencies and appraisers, and the type of instruments they rate and the type of valuation techniques we use, are pretty strong in some ways.

 

[Pittsburgh Pete]

And most of all, can we at least try not to hate everyone we work for? Can we refrain from characterizing them all as our primary enemy, or assuming they're working in bad faith to rip off everyone they do business with?

Amen to that--always found the whole adversarial take on the biz as extremely disconcerting.

 

[djd09]

And most of all, can we at least try not to hate everyone we work for? Can we refrain from characterizing them all as our primary enemy, or assuming they're working in bad faith to rip off everyone they do business with?

Wells Fargo uncovers up to 1.4 million more fake accounts

Wells Fargo (WFC) now says it has found a total of up to 3.5 million potentially fake bank and credit card accounts, up from its earlier tally of approximately 2.1 million. In other words, there are two-thirds more fake accounts than previously realized.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/31/investing/wells-fargo-fake-accounts/index.html

but "the foundation of the public trust is the appraiser/client relationship. "

 

[George Hatch]

I gotta tell you about working into the other client types. Those panels are almost closed. It is not easy to break 20+ year business relationships. I don't know if it really matters how good the work is up against a 20+ year business relationship. It's basically gotta wait for your turn.

You're completely right about the extent to which such clients limit how many appraisers they want to deal with. It's simply easier to deal with a dozen heads you know really well than 100 you don't. But the other thing about long term relationships is that the clients are getting older along with me at the same rate. I've had lots of clients I've "lost" over the years because the people who preferred me moved on or retired and the person coming in had their own preferences. See, I'm not entitled to anyone's work, either - even if I've already been doing business there for years. By the same token, whichever appraisers those newer employees were doing business with, that's who moved into that work.

Except for a handful of instances right when I started my own gig, I've never otherwise cold called or marketed for clients. I've only gotten into places by referral. I'm not even a people person. I have no social networking skills nor any interest in developing them. I *might* be in the upper 15% of appraisers in terms of the actual quality and attention to detail I put into my work, so "perfection" isn't it, either.

The one thing I try to focus on is sussing out and dealing with the questions that are important to my users. I aspire to put more attention into what's meaningful to them and less attention of the stuff they ignore and don't care about. For example, most commercial appraisers I know put 20 or 30 pages of regional analysis and general market overview into every appraisal report they do. I don't do that unless its germaine to the property type I'm appraising, or a client is from out of town or they specifically ask for that. In that vein, I try to avoid working with clients who don't know their market or don't understand that if I'm appraising the local car wash it doesn't much matter who the local employers are, how far the subject site is from the closest international airport, how many universities there are in the region or what the rental and vacancy trends for industrial or multi-family or office properties.

My point is that if you make your presence known to your users a few of them will get to know your work and some of them might remember your name when they get promoted and are in a position to make their own choices. But you do that by putting it out, first. Not by waiting for someone to ask you.

 

[Joe Flacco]

Things don't happen by doing nothing. That's for sure.

 

[djd09]

Fannie Mae exec hires a stripper for Sex. Now She’s suing. Go figure.

Yet another example of insanity in the Housing Market. Not insane “hot” just insane. So it appears a Fannie Mae Exec hired a stripper to work at the GSE. She wanted a new job and he wanted another type of job. Believe it or not, it didn’t work out. One question, where is accountability? Others knew, which means Fannie brass had to know; and they did nothing. Sound familiar? Check out the video & please share and like.

https://mortgageshots.com/fannie-mae-exec-hires-stripper-sex-now-shes-suing-go-figure/

 

[George Hatch]

Wells Fargo uncovers up to 1.4 million more fake accounts

Wells Fargo (WFC) now says it has found a total of up to 3.5 million potentially fake bank and credit card accounts, up from its earlier tally of approximately 2.1 million. In other words, there are two-thirds more fake accounts than previously realized.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/31/investing/wells-fargo-fake-accounts/index.html

but "the foundation of the public trust is the appraiser/client relationship. "

Yawn, yawn, yawn. There are bad actors at the corporate level in large corporations. So what? That doesn't mean that everyone or even anyone that you're dealing with at your level is a criminal. That doesn't mean that everyone you're dealing with at Wells right now is going to stay there forever. Some of them are going to go elsewhere.

IRL, I almost always get what I give. Even the criminals like to use the line "I would never ask you to do something you aren't comfortable with", because - news flash - everyone wants to think of themselves as being a good person who is just doing their job. Even the criminals. Even the donkeys. And especially the idiots.

If your default is to hate everyone you interact with then you are the one who loses the most off of that. The people you were right about will move on anyway when you don't cooperate with whatever they're trying to do,m and the people you're wrong about will also move on with people they think they can do business with. Water seeks its own level. True story.

 

[Mr Rex]

It only happens in the GSE GOE world. No where else in the world would a high salaried person hire a stripper ...

Have you missed the whole "metoo#" movement?