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Bye, Bye, ASC -Appraisal Subcommittee on the verge of shutting down
- Thread starter Mejappz
- Start date
John Hassler
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jul 23, 2002
- Professional Status
- Certified Residential Appraiser
- State
- California
The ASC began the process of a UID system some ten years ago. I don’t know why it has not been fully implemented but I do know there was only one IT person at ASC when I was dealing with them.I'm not criticizing anyone in particular there (I've chatted with several, nice enough folks - hate the game, not the player). But they can't even get a basic accurate count of the number of appraisers there are in the USA which is as simple as coming up with a unique ID system (to deal with multi-state licenses):
Analysis of 2025 Appraisal Subcommittee License Data
Explore key trends in 2025 appraisal licensing data, including certification types, experience levels, and state rankings.realquantum.com
Elliott
Elite Member
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2002
- Professional Status
- Certified General Appraiser
- State
- Oregon
In other 'corruption news' from Jeremy Bagott newletter (4/4/25):
"A scorched-earth campaign carried out by Biden administration appointees at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development – and joined by a handful of mau-mauing nonprofits, a crony law firm and a pair of Houston politicians – concluded the Texas General Land Office had committed acts of discrimination. At stake was the distribution of $1 billion in federal funds for disaster mitigation. But just one problem: the discrimination claim was made up.
..................
The bedfellows had names like the National Low Income Housing Coalition, Texas Housers, Relman Colfax, the Northeast Action Collective, Congressman Al Green and the late Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, the latter then battling allegations involving millions of dollars in government contracts awarded to politically connected individuals.
In 2021, the ubiquitous Washington, D.C., law firm Relman Colfax filed a HUD complaint on behalf of Texas Housers. The law firm has represented Texas Housers in a number of matters seeking to manipulate the distribution of flood mitigation funds by the Texas Land Office.
The nation’s appraisers will be familiar with Relman Colfax.
Court filings show Relman Colfax has been a conduit for more than $3 million billed on behalf of a black-studies professor at Johns Hopkins University in a nuisance lawsuit over the appraised value of his home. Court records show that over a two-and-a-half-year period, the law firm billed 5,411 hours to the case at an average hourly rate of $583 with total expenditures reaching $3.15 million. The source of the funding is rife with speculation.
A murky Beltway nonprofit called the Appraisal Foundation paid over $500,000 to Relman Colfax in 2022, according to its IRS Form 990. The nonprofit, which wants to write the standards for automated valuation products, has received tens of millions of dollars in grants from a HUD-aligned federal entity that has also been promoting false narratives about appraisers."
"A scorched-earth campaign carried out by Biden administration appointees at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development – and joined by a handful of mau-mauing nonprofits, a crony law firm and a pair of Houston politicians – concluded the Texas General Land Office had committed acts of discrimination. At stake was the distribution of $1 billion in federal funds for disaster mitigation. But just one problem: the discrimination claim was made up.
..................
The bedfellows had names like the National Low Income Housing Coalition, Texas Housers, Relman Colfax, the Northeast Action Collective, Congressman Al Green and the late Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, the latter then battling allegations involving millions of dollars in government contracts awarded to politically connected individuals.
In 2021, the ubiquitous Washington, D.C., law firm Relman Colfax filed a HUD complaint on behalf of Texas Housers. The law firm has represented Texas Housers in a number of matters seeking to manipulate the distribution of flood mitigation funds by the Texas Land Office.
The nation’s appraisers will be familiar with Relman Colfax.
Court filings show Relman Colfax has been a conduit for more than $3 million billed on behalf of a black-studies professor at Johns Hopkins University in a nuisance lawsuit over the appraised value of his home. Court records show that over a two-and-a-half-year period, the law firm billed 5,411 hours to the case at an average hourly rate of $583 with total expenditures reaching $3.15 million. The source of the funding is rife with speculation.
A murky Beltway nonprofit called the Appraisal Foundation paid over $500,000 to Relman Colfax in 2022, according to its IRS Form 990. The nonprofit, which wants to write the standards for automated valuation products, has received tens of millions of dollars in grants from a HUD-aligned federal entity that has also been promoting false narratives about appraisers."
Mejappz
Elite Member
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2005
- Professional Status
- Certified Residential Appraiser
- State
- Florida
This directly addresses the issue that these agencies are often shaped by the prevailing political climate or the current zeitgeist. which is one of the points Park's was making in his paper. You can't have that and maintain any credibility.
George Hatch
Elite Member
- Joined
- Jan 15, 2002
- Professional Status
- Certified General Appraiser
- State
- California
victims of lawfare, which is the SOP of certain special interest groups.
The ASB added a lengthy edit but it doesn't alter any of the requirements relating to the prohibitions against bias. All it amounted to was a virtue signal that is intended to demonstrate that they did something. Kinda like the "shut up ring".
The ASB added a lengthy edit but it doesn't alter any of the requirements relating to the prohibitions against bias. All it amounted to was a virtue signal that is intended to demonstrate that they did something. Kinda like the "shut up ring".
Last edited:
Mejappz
Elite Member
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2005
- Professional Status
- Certified Residential Appraiser
- State
- Florida
Here is JB's entire article. One organization stands for the truth the other stands for their own special interest. Even if it means slandering appraisers as racist.
SPIGOT FINALLY CLOSES ON HUD MISCHIEF IN HOUSTON
VENTURA, Calif. (April 4, 2025) – As the saying goes, “A lie travels halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on.”
A scorched-earth campaign carried out by Biden administration appointees at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development – and joined by a handful of mau-mauing nonprofits, a crony law firm and a pair of Houston politicians – concluded the Texas General Land Office had committed acts of discrimination. At stake was the distribution of $1 billion in federal funds for disaster mitigation. But just one problem: the discrimination claim was made up.
The nation’s 70,000 state-licensed real property appraisers, victims of a similarly stage-managed smear campaign by HUD working with outside actors, will recognize the tactics.
The HUD political appointees and their cronies shook the trees at the Texas General Land Office to see if something would shake loose. Nothing did, but they managed to smear the agency’s reputation in the process.
HUD, now under new management, has rescinded a theatrical referral to the Department of Justice originally made – and then rejected – under the direction of former HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge, who exited the sinking Biden ship last year and is now a Washington lobbyist. The latest iteration of the performative referral was sent days before the inauguration. The new administration has now frozen all pending civil-rights litigation. This relief has been long overdue.
Brittany Eck, a spokesperson from the Texas General Land Office, told the Houston Chronicle last month there was no evidence to substantiate any of HUD’s allegations. State officials had discriminated against no one.
In 2023, the Justice Department rejected HUD’s original referral, the product of three years of investigation. This didn’t stop HUD from continuing its campaign of harassment. The federal agency, flush with cash from the Inflation Reduction Act, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the American Rescue Plan Act then spent another year investigating the Texas state agency.
Ken Mullinix, a California-based real property appraiser, has been investigated by the ponderous federal agency for over two years. The might of the agency with nearly 10,000 employees and $214 billion in budgetary resources has been arrayed against Mullinix and about 300 state-licensed appraisers for simply doing their job.
The cause? The appraisers rendered unpopular opinions of real estate value and drew bogus discrimination complaints and investigations stoked by HUD and a network of crony nonprofits and politically aligned law firms. The investigations, conducted largely by contractors, have stretched out for years. The harassment is meant to send a signal to all appraisers – If they wish to avoid trouble, they should go along with the contract price in a sale or the value required to make a refinance pencil.
During the Biden years, HUD signaled to real estate salespeople, lenders, disgruntled borrowers and HUD-affiliated groups to bring them appraisers for dubious bias investigations.
“For now, the investigation itself is the punishment,” said Mullinix. “The goal is to make a relatively small number of appraisers into full-time, professional defendants. They hope the word will spread among all appraisers and intimidate them into rubber-stamping reports. HUD is letting the appraisal industry know what’s in store for honest appraisers. It’s a scorched-earth campaign.”
But back to the tactics directed at the Texas General Land Office. Spokesperson Brittany Eck told the news outlet ProPublica: “Political appointees and advocates spent years spinning false narratives without the facts to build a case. Four years of sensationalized, clickbait rhetoric without evidence is long enough.”
At one point, the Texas state land agency was considering litigation against HUD, accusing the federal agency of politicizing flood mitigation efforts.
“Two thirds of the beneficiaries of the mitigation funding — more than 1 million — are minorities and 100% are low-to-moderate income — surpassing the metrics required by HUD,” Commissioner Dawn Buckingham said in a written statement.
After Harvey devastated the region, the state was handed $4.3 billion in recovery dollars to help residents build back what they lost in the storm, and the state’s land office built a competition for how around $1 billion of that cash would be spent. One billion dollars is a lot of money and predictably groups emerged to mau-mau officials at the land office.
The bedfellows had names like the National Low Income Housing Coalition, Texas Housers, Relman Colfax, the Northeast Action Collective, Congressman Al Green and the late Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, the latter then battling allegations involving millions of dollars in government contracts awarded to politically connected individuals.
In 2021, the ubiquitous Washington, D.C., law firm Relman Colfax filed a HUD complaint on behalf of Texas Housers. The law firm has represented Texas Housers in a number of matters seeking to manipulate the distribution of flood mitigation funds by the Texas Land Office.
The nation’s appraisers will be familiar with Relman Colfax.
Court filings show Relman Colfax has been a conduit for more than $3 million billed on behalf of a black-studies professor at Johns Hopkins University in a nuisance lawsuit over the appraised value of his home. Court records show that over a two-and-a-half-year period, the law firm billed 5,411 hours to the case at an average hourly rate of $583 with total expenditures reaching $3.15 million. The source of the funding is rife with speculation.
A murky Beltway nonprofit called the Appraisal Foundation paid over $500,000 to Relman Colfax in 2022, according to its IRS Form 990. The nonprofit, which wants to write the standards for automated valuation products, has received tens of millions of dollars in grants from a HUD-aligned federal entity that has also been promoting false narratives about appraisers.
Jeremy Bagott is a real estate appraiser and former newspaperman. His most recent book, “The Ichthyologist’s Guide to the Subprime Meltdown,” is a concise almanac that distills the cataclysmic financial crisis of 2007-2008 to its essence. This pithy guide to the upheaval includes essays, chronologies, roundups and key lists, weaving together the stories of the politics-infused Freddie and Fannie; the doomed Wall Street investment banks Lehman and Bear Stearns; the dereliction of duty by the Big Three credit-rating services; the mayhem caused by the shadowy nonbank lenders; and the massive government bailouts. It provides a rapid-fire succession of “ah-hah” moments as it lays out the meltdown, convulsion by convulsion.
*** FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ***
SPIGOT FINALLY CLOSES ON HUD MISCHIEF IN HOUSTON
VENTURA, Calif. (April 4, 2025) – As the saying goes, “A lie travels halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on.”
A scorched-earth campaign carried out by Biden administration appointees at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development – and joined by a handful of mau-mauing nonprofits, a crony law firm and a pair of Houston politicians – concluded the Texas General Land Office had committed acts of discrimination. At stake was the distribution of $1 billion in federal funds for disaster mitigation. But just one problem: the discrimination claim was made up.
The nation’s 70,000 state-licensed real property appraisers, victims of a similarly stage-managed smear campaign by HUD working with outside actors, will recognize the tactics.
The HUD political appointees and their cronies shook the trees at the Texas General Land Office to see if something would shake loose. Nothing did, but they managed to smear the agency’s reputation in the process.
HUD, now under new management, has rescinded a theatrical referral to the Department of Justice originally made – and then rejected – under the direction of former HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge, who exited the sinking Biden ship last year and is now a Washington lobbyist. The latest iteration of the performative referral was sent days before the inauguration. The new administration has now frozen all pending civil-rights litigation. This relief has been long overdue.
Brittany Eck, a spokesperson from the Texas General Land Office, told the Houston Chronicle last month there was no evidence to substantiate any of HUD’s allegations. State officials had discriminated against no one.
In 2023, the Justice Department rejected HUD’s original referral, the product of three years of investigation. This didn’t stop HUD from continuing its campaign of harassment. The federal agency, flush with cash from the Inflation Reduction Act, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the American Rescue Plan Act then spent another year investigating the Texas state agency.
Ken Mullinix, a California-based real property appraiser, has been investigated by the ponderous federal agency for over two years. The might of the agency with nearly 10,000 employees and $214 billion in budgetary resources has been arrayed against Mullinix and about 300 state-licensed appraisers for simply doing their job.
The cause? The appraisers rendered unpopular opinions of real estate value and drew bogus discrimination complaints and investigations stoked by HUD and a network of crony nonprofits and politically aligned law firms. The investigations, conducted largely by contractors, have stretched out for years. The harassment is meant to send a signal to all appraisers – If they wish to avoid trouble, they should go along with the contract price in a sale or the value required to make a refinance pencil.
During the Biden years, HUD signaled to real estate salespeople, lenders, disgruntled borrowers and HUD-affiliated groups to bring them appraisers for dubious bias investigations.
“For now, the investigation itself is the punishment,” said Mullinix. “The goal is to make a relatively small number of appraisers into full-time, professional defendants. They hope the word will spread among all appraisers and intimidate them into rubber-stamping reports. HUD is letting the appraisal industry know what’s in store for honest appraisers. It’s a scorched-earth campaign.”
But back to the tactics directed at the Texas General Land Office. Spokesperson Brittany Eck told the news outlet ProPublica: “Political appointees and advocates spent years spinning false narratives without the facts to build a case. Four years of sensationalized, clickbait rhetoric without evidence is long enough.”
At one point, the Texas state land agency was considering litigation against HUD, accusing the federal agency of politicizing flood mitigation efforts.
“Two thirds of the beneficiaries of the mitigation funding — more than 1 million — are minorities and 100% are low-to-moderate income — surpassing the metrics required by HUD,” Commissioner Dawn Buckingham said in a written statement.
After Harvey devastated the region, the state was handed $4.3 billion in recovery dollars to help residents build back what they lost in the storm, and the state’s land office built a competition for how around $1 billion of that cash would be spent. One billion dollars is a lot of money and predictably groups emerged to mau-mau officials at the land office.
The bedfellows had names like the National Low Income Housing Coalition, Texas Housers, Relman Colfax, the Northeast Action Collective, Congressman Al Green and the late Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, the latter then battling allegations involving millions of dollars in government contracts awarded to politically connected individuals.
In 2021, the ubiquitous Washington, D.C., law firm Relman Colfax filed a HUD complaint on behalf of Texas Housers. The law firm has represented Texas Housers in a number of matters seeking to manipulate the distribution of flood mitigation funds by the Texas Land Office.
The nation’s appraisers will be familiar with Relman Colfax.
Court filings show Relman Colfax has been a conduit for more than $3 million billed on behalf of a black-studies professor at Johns Hopkins University in a nuisance lawsuit over the appraised value of his home. Court records show that over a two-and-a-half-year period, the law firm billed 5,411 hours to the case at an average hourly rate of $583 with total expenditures reaching $3.15 million. The source of the funding is rife with speculation.
A murky Beltway nonprofit called the Appraisal Foundation paid over $500,000 to Relman Colfax in 2022, according to its IRS Form 990. The nonprofit, which wants to write the standards for automated valuation products, has received tens of millions of dollars in grants from a HUD-aligned federal entity that has also been promoting false narratives about appraisers.
# # #
Jeremy Bagott is a real estate appraiser and former newspaperman. His most recent book, “The Ichthyologist’s Guide to the Subprime Meltdown,” is a concise almanac that distills the cataclysmic financial crisis of 2007-2008 to its essence. This pithy guide to the upheaval includes essays, chronologies, roundups and key lists, weaving together the stories of the politics-infused Freddie and Fannie; the doomed Wall Street investment banks Lehman and Bear Stearns; the dereliction of duty by the Big Three credit-rating services; the mayhem caused by the shadowy nonbank lenders; and the massive government bailouts. It provides a rapid-fire succession of “ah-hah” moments as it lays out the meltdown, convulsion by convulsion.
cpursley
Member
- Joined
- Feb 17, 2015
- Professional Status
- IT Professional-Appraisal Related
- State
- Georgia
That book looks great, wish it were on Audible. Hard to read after burning my eyes out trolling AF.
John Hassler
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jul 23, 2002
- Professional Status
- Certified Residential Appraiser
- State
- California
Jeremy is a talented writer but he tends to connect dots that don’t exist. I read him for entertainment purposes with an occasional tidbit of fact.
chad hampton
Senior Member
- Joined
- Nov 10, 2006
- Professional Status
- Certified Residential Appraiser
- State
- North Carolina
Scofflaw is the perfect word to describe what this industry is all about these days. It’s rampant. Everywhere you turn.
glenn walker
Elite Member
- Joined
- Oct 11, 2006
- Professional Status
- Certified Residential Appraiser
- State
- California
Time for the Tony Robbins motivation seminar to get that negative doom and gloom attitude adjustment.
Think about the positives like going through peoples homes that take $500,000 a year incomes to afford to buy. Or seeing those $250,000 Lamborghinis in the eight car garage.
That's how I felt at 25 years old driving into Beverly Hills or Newport Beach in a Chevy Silverado.
How else could I get motivated and get paid to do it. Hell I had to put lawn equipment in the truck bed so when the police drove bye they didn't think I was casing the neighborhood's and hot chicks would ask if I also cleaned pools. LMAO