FHA And Retainer Blocks?

[Mike Kennedy]

So a weird question from a former agent and mortgage broker now a buyer (me):

FHA asked for a million things painted, no surprise there, to close on my Michigan duplex. I was surprised they wanted a large drain pipe repainted, but what really got me is this:

Wooden retaining blocks, which keep the soil in the landscape back, not attached to dwelling and impossible they were installed before 1978, are unpainted and never have been painted.

FHA appraiser wants these blocks PAINTED, and referred to them as "cement blocks." The question is, can they do this? Of course, the government can make anyone do virtually anything. But, is this customary?

Fences attached, I get. Detached fences,maybe. But landscaping not within 100 feet of the dwelling? COME ON. Thoughts?

Hope you brought enough of whatever that duhpraiser was smoking for the whole class.

 

[Dublin ohio]

So the "appraiser" calls them "cement blocks". Even though they are actually wood. Anybody see a problem with that? Too difficult for appraiser to touch them and go "Oh, those are wood". If they have never been painted before. Where is the defective surface. If no peeling paint. Why call for painting. Sounds like appraiser is clueless and is calling for painting to CYA. Appraiser called for "cement blocks" to be painted. Technically, Nothing to paint. No cement blocks present since they are actually wood.

 

[Meandering]

Another idiotic and absurd reach on your part. Just tell me how an appraiser would check or even know if all sides of landscaping blocks or an earth wall were painted? What is the appraiser going to do, dig up the wall/landscaping blocks to see if the back and the bottom is painted. Your posts in this thread are beyond silly.

Look chuckles,

Neither you, nor I, have the report or see the pics to understand any of this.

But we do know this guy is the buyer of the property, not the seller.

And you and I both know, if the lender requires smiley faces to be painted on the windows,

that's what the seller must do for the buyer to get the loan.

I'm not making stuff up, or pretending every complaint against an appraiser is valid or invalid. But there have been buyers here before that have provided the Zillow listing so you can see what they are talking about.

There are idiot appraisers, and idiot mortgage brokers, and idiot sales people and idiot buyers and sellers. Anyone of them or none of them could be the issue. Wouldn't be the first time a refusal to lend was blamed on an appraisal issue that never existed.

You go ahead with your crystal ball and fantasies about who's right or wrong. That idiot logic seems to satisfy some deep desire of yours, not mine.

In my reality, if the appraiser made an idiot request, the lender can wave the issue and not require it.

If you have some different reality, that appraisers suddenly have magical powers to demand buyers, sellers and lenders perform in order to obtain a loan,

please do fill the rest of us in, because we were not aware we were so powerful.

.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

Potential structural issues if the wall fails???

You don't need to be much of a civil engineer to understand that the hillside above, if it fails will not notice that little retaining wall and will destroy this house. If I was an insurance man, I would not insure this house against slide or earthquake damage. The driveway below used to be level with the road with the tape on it. The whole house shifted down hill about 10' or more.

 

[timd354]

. The whole house shifted down hill about 10' or more.
View attachment 32084

Would that make this house a mobile home? lol

 

[CANative]

Read the OP....the landscaping blocks are not painted and have never been painted. The appraiser who called for unpainted wood landscaping blocks to be painted is an idiot

Who is the bigger idiot? An appraiser who may have jumped the shark or the witless underwriter who doesn't know the actual underwriting requirements?

I see this type of thing almost every day on this forum and the FB groups. Appraisers who wring their hands over minutiae in an FHA assignment. Especially after the 4000.1 came out.

 

[timd354]

Who is the bigger idiot? An appraiser who may have jumped the shark or the witless underwriter who doesn't know the actual underwriting requirements?

I see this type of thing almost every day on this forum and the FB groups. Appraisers who wring their hands over minutiae in an FHA assignment. Especially after the 4000.1 came out.

They both may be idiots, but the fact is that many lenders simply do not let their DEU's waive appraisal requirements on FHA loans because they are afraid that the investor (if the lender is not also a servicer) could try to put the loan back on them. That may be silly in some cases, but that is the reality of how the secondary market works.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

Appraisers who wring their hands over minutiae

Appraisers Pavlovian responses are predictable because too many have had "gotcha" moments where some new lender invents a new "condition" that they often claim are required by "USPAP" or "Fannie" or FHA 4000.1...which for itself, FHA admitted there were some conflicted statements within the document. When pressed the client often backtracks and say that the condition is "required" internally by the bank.

The fix is for FHA and Fannie Mae to declare that all such conditions added by the lender are cause to reject the loan and that they are forbidden to require more than fannie or FHA requires. The second fix in my mind is to create a new Uniform Standard solely for FHA and Fannie Mae. USPAP_GSE or something that adopts some basic principals common to government backed or funded lending. It is hard to play by the rules when you don't know the rules or worse, the rules are changing.

Banks have gotten along fine with USPAP and the Interagency guidelines for non-secondary market lending. The angst among appraisers is primarily concentrated in the secondary market valuations. The AMC model sucks and the banks should all be required to order their own appraisals in house. Make secondary market lenders stop interfering in the appraisal process and fix the whole forms-standards-stips situation with an unchanging and unchangeable standard for GSEs and FHA and you have the makings of removing most of the issues that plague residential appraisers.

 

[Meandering]

Appraisers Pavlovian responses are predictable because too many have had "gotcha" moments where some new lender invents a new "condition" that they often claim are required by "USPAP" or "Fannie" or FHA 4000.1...which for itself, FHA admitted there were some conflicted statements within the document. When pressed the client often backtracks and say that the condition is "required" internally by the bank.

The fix is for FHA and Fannie Mae to declare that all such conditions added by the lender are cause to reject the loan and that they are forbidden to require more than fannie or FHA requires. The second fix in my mind is to create a new Uniform Standard solely for FHA and Fannie Mae. USPAP_GSE or something that adopts some basic principals common to government backed or funded lending. It is hard to play by the rules when you don't know the rules or worse, the rules are changing.

Banks have gotten along fine with USPAP and the Interagency guidelines for non-secondary market lending. The angst among appraisers is primarily concentrated in the secondary market valuations. The AMC model sucks and the banks should all be required to order their own appraisals in house. Make secondary market lenders stop interfering in the appraisal process and fix the whole forms-standards-stips situation with an unchanging and unchangeable standard for GSEs and FHA and you have the makings of removing most of the issues that plague residential appraisers.

All true.

However, for this thread,

We have a half-assed biased story from a ticked off buyer who's loan is not going through, yet claiming industry experience, and, a bunch of idiot appraisers making judgment calls "in their professional opinions" about some unknown appraiser.

So please, all of you who agree with the OP that the appraiser is an idiot,

wait until later tonight, just before bedtime.

Please write how you came to your opinion, after viewing the report, the property, the zoning ordinance, any covenants, conditions and by-laws that may run with the land,
and detail why the appraiser is an idiot.

Thanks,
I like a good appraiser fantasy bedtime story.

bunch of jerks.


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[jay trotta]

No sheet....thanks Cap'n obvious

Found the Green Hornet / Superman / Spider / The Hulk etc; thanks for the heads up on Cap'n Obvious, been trying to find her/him for years and all this time, been hiding under the Cloak of "Marion", would have never guessed.