We have always known that the answer to "how many examples are there of people getting treated differently?" is some number in excess of zero. It should therefore come as no surprise to anyone that some of the complaints being sent to HUD will end with formal charges, even if that's not always the outcome. I think I heard or read somewhere they have 200 complaints in hand but most haven't yet been resolved. If 200 is somewheres near being the actual number of cases - and if some of those cases are unfounded, then the number of actual misconduct will not turn out to be a large number when considering how many appraisers are out there.
Large number of not, any number in excess of zero should be cause for concern amongst appraisers,
The powers that be are taking an insignificant tiny problem and playing it like it is a major one. This is harmful to appraisal as a profession and self-serving for those benefitting from that..
There can never be a ZERO problem in any profession - even USPAP says perfection is not possible. A profession is made up of people, and any profession, including the loftiest, such as physicians, will have a certain small % of rogues or incompetents.
This case, at least from what we know, seems like a legit one - and it shows the mechanisms are in place to make it whole and punish this one appraiser. Although the supposed harm the appraiser did this owner in a refinance is minor - other than hurting their feelings as an aggrieved person, the owners did not suffer any real harm, the way a patient whose doctor fails them wrt death or disease or other failures or corruptions in a profession that really harms people financially. At most, the owner got less of a refinance amount than they wanted, and they easily could have gone to another lender. It sounds like they refinanced tons of times before, and who knows if those past renounce values were too high or not.
That said, of course, it is teh right thing to root out and expose those few appraisers who use bias. But don't pretend it is a huge problem across the professions when there is no evidence of that.
The point is more that these cases are isolated and of little real harm, and some of these cases, like the high-profile one in California, might not be real cases , more like something that got settled to avoid bad PR. We can not know if the second appraisal was inflated, nobody saw it compared with the first. Yet Fannie and Freddie liked it and accepted it as legit because it fed their agenda of disenfranchising appraisers and replacing appraisals with alt valuations that they or their profiteer cronies control. The WAIVER is a perfect example.
AVMs use similar data and methods as appraisals do , and there are probably more loans made now based on AVMs, What is the scrutiny on them ?
community for the discussion of real estate appraisal. Register a free account to be able to post and unlock additional forums and features.
