Interesting letter but in the grand scheme of things, it will have no effect. All of his points have been addressed multiple times in various committees and commissions but ultimately, someone with better access and deeper pockets has paid good money to buy the people that make the final decisions. I suspect that Corelogic is in line to sell F/F all of the 'accurate and credible' data necessary for their waiver decisions.
None of this should be a surprise to any appraiser that pays attention to the world around them. For the most part, they have at their fingertips all of the data necessary to produce a reasonably credible appraisal report, thanks to the internet. Did they think that they were the only ones scouring this online data? Plus, appraisers have willingly provided CL and others mountains of data via the UAD reports.
Its like the publishers of those 'old' phone books trying to keep phone numbers off of the internet and force everyone to continue to use the 10 lb books. Appraisers are the harness makers of the past. Sure, they still sell some harnesses today but its a bit of a specialized market.
As to the cries of 'protecting the public good and the taxpayers'....appraisals have never been very useful in that regard. All of the reasonable and credible appraisal reports in the world did virtually nothing to mitigate the last real estate crash. No reason to think they would prevent the next one.
Vetting the borrowers and requiring a sensible down payment would go a long ways in preventing a real estate crash but since the real estate market has become little more than a gov't subsidized and guaranteed welfare program, the last thing the Fed wants is to have anyone (appraisers) in the way of perpetuating this grand scheme.
YMMV.
