Rocket Mortgage Sued

[Digger88]

Thanks you providing your thoughts on the complexity of the neighborhood. This seems to be a commonality among bias claims.

I don’t see the appraisal community accepting of the bias accusations unless and until multiple bias cases wind all the way through the courts and the evidence released to the public. Just stating one appraisal proves the other is biased is insufficient.

yea it seems son implausible that we are deliberately undervaluing homes bc of someone's skin color this is so silly

 

[John Hassler]

yea it seems son implausible that we are deliberately undervaluing homes bc of someone's skin color this is so silly

Implausible but not impossible. The problem for all the plaintiffs, and for HUD, is, to date, they’ve used the court of public opinion to beat the appraiser/AMC/lender into submission.

 

[Elliott]

This is just shooting from the hip, but looks like DOJ is going after a larger, regional appraisal firm. While they can crush an individual appraiser, but everytime they try, they find themself in a protracted battle. Appraisers don't seem to roll over as expected. Other than a 'lower value' then before, I seriously doubt the DOJ will be able to over come the supported facts of the appraisal. Only a stupid judge would give a rip about the 'first appraisal.'

Pretty thin premise (from the complaint):

"The Subject Property’s appraised value was insupportably low. Mr. Mykhailyna
appraised the Subject Property at a significantly lower value than other appraisals of it
requested by Rocket Mortgage a few years beforehand ($640,000 in 2021, compared to
$860,000 in 2020 and $750,000 in 2018). Property values in the area were generally
increasing around the time of the Subject Appraisal, which was the only appraisal of the
Subject Property out of seven conducted over nine years that indicated a drop in the
property’s value."

 

[shrubberyvaluation]

This is just shooting from the hip, but looks like DOJ is going after a larger, regional appraisal firm. While they can crush an individual appraiser, but everytime they try, they find themself in a protracted battle. Appraisers don't seem to roll over as expected. Other than a 'lower value' then before, I seriously doubt the DOJ will be able to over come the supported facts of the appraisal. Only a stupid judge would give a rip about the 'first appraisal.'

Pretty thin premise (from the complaint):

"The Subject Property’s appraised value was insupportably low. Mr. Mykhailyna
appraised the Subject Property at a significantly lower value than other appraisals of it
requested by Rocket Mortgage a few years beforehand ($640,000 in 2021, compared to
$860,000 in 2020 and $750,000 in 2018). Property values in the area were generally
increasing around the time of the Subject Appraisal, which was the only appraisal of the
Subject Property out of seven conducted over nine years that indicated a drop in the
property’s value."

Don't see how that implies bias. Hard to say without all the info, they claim he went west for other homes, and east for that home, dont know if the other homes were duplexes, don't know if he know the racial identity of the other borrowers. Does it say what comps he used?

 

[Elliott]

"IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO
Civil Action No. 24-cv-02915
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff,
v.
ROCKET MORTGAGE, LLC;
SOLIDIFI U.S. INC.;
MAKSYM MYKHAILYNA; and
MAVERICK APPRAISAL GROUP INC.,
Defendants.
COMPLAINT
INTRODUCTION
1. The United States of America brings this action to enforce Title VIII of the
Civil Rights Act of 1968, as amended (“the Fair Housing Act”), 42 U.S.C. §§ 3601–3619,
on behalf of Francesca Cheroutes, a Black woman, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 3612(o)."

.........................

Apparently Francesca Cheroutes might also be according to LinkedIn:

"Francesca Cheroutes
(She/Her)
Attorney at U.S. Department of Labor
Denver, Colorado, United States"

 

[Fernando]

So Redfin is racist, at least for this one. Where is the address at?

I'm not a racist but I like Redfin.
I put more value in Redfin's estimate valuation than Zillow.

 

[Dublin ohio]

I'm a racist but I like Redfin.

Wait..................................What???

 

[shrubberyvaluation]

Wait..................................What???

Its far more fun having fernando on ignore and guessing what he said.

 

[Fernando]

Wait..................................What???

I forgot "not". Thanks for checking my statements. Trump must be in my head.

 

[RCA]

An ongoing story. Think of the details and implications though. So much for client confidentiality because on the GSE level, investigators apparently have instant access to the appraisal repositories.

You don't understand Denver and what these places are like. There is a block by block differential where one side is standard regular homes, the others are custom homes with tremendous hundreds of thousands of value dollars difference. And sometimes they're intermingled so after time you learn about these patterns, that if you land one of the orders for a regular amid the customs, they tend to comp out more on this area then that, and vice versa. Not to mention the consistent 2/3rds ratio of land value being higher than home value, unless you're into the customs but even then it's often half and half.

There is no white area or black area in these communities like one might presume, just pockets of yuppies and urban folk congregating in micro pockets not but blocks away from each other.

Mykhailyna appraised the property to be over $200,000 lower than an appraisal on the same property that had been completed less than a year before, a more than 25% decrease at a time of rising home values in the Denver.

That's probably because the appraiser prior had over valued the property that much is the more likely situation. Probably chasing down a realtors figures based on flawed Denver based MLS Corelogic Realist avm estimates which are known for presenting six digit possible price ranges.

Don't worry, the lender and AMC will crawl out of this mess by dumping the entire thing on the appraiser and leave the appraiser with the full burden of all investigative and representative costs.

I will guess this is probably the case, more or less. Colorado is pretty liberal, and from what you stated, I seriously doubt there are appraisers around who are going to be concerned with race - rather than just getting the job done as well as possible.

I would like to do some appraisals in Denver. Sounds tantalizing.