The appraisal world changes on May 1, 2009.

I have been on a mission over the past year to creat awareness of the continuing issue of appraisal pressure and to prevent the enabling of appraisal management companies via the Cuomo/Fannie deal to dominate the mortgage appraisal business. It appears a foregone conclusion that appraisal management companies will dominate the mortgage appraisal process and as a result, will end up with a system worse off than before the credit crunch began.

>Earlier this year, Mr. Cuomo threatened to sue government-sponsored mortgage investors Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for allegedly failing to ensure that appraisers were shielded from pressure to inflate their estimates. Appraisers have long maintained that many loan officers or brokers, whose pay depends on how many loans they complete, pressure them to come up with value estimates high enough to ensure approval of the loans.

>In March, Fannie and Freddie, eager to avoid a legal battle, agreed with Mr. Cuomo on an appraisal code of conduct. That plan drew fire from mortgage-industry groups and some federal regulators. Among other things, they said the code could raise costs for consumers and cause unnecessary disruption in the appraisal business.

One of the key issues facing appraisers was the pressure we were placed under to “hit the number” during the recent mortgage/housing boom. 20 years ago our clients were stodgy financial institutions with a separate appraisal departments surrounded by a firewall to keep loan officers away from the appraiser. Just before the onset of the credit crunch, the mortgage system originated something like 3/4 of its volume via mortgage brokers, who are paid when the loan closes. They select the appraiser {red flag} to perform the appraisal for the mortgage. If the appraiser comes in low, eventually, maybe not initially, the mortgage broker would find someone “better” {wink}. I can tell you, 75% of the appraisals completed for mortgage purposes are not worth the paper they are written on.

New York State Attorney General Cuomo opted to start with the appraiser and follow the mortgage. He ended up striking a deal with then GSEs Fannie and Freddie to curtail some past practices called Home Valuation Code of Conduct or HVCC. Some appraisers lovingly call the agreement “Havoc” because of the chaos it created. It enabled appraisal management companies.

One of the main changes was removing the ability of mortgage brokers to order mortgage appraisals directly if the mortgage was to be sold to Fannie and Freddie. If a mortgage application has an appraisal order through the mortgage broker, then Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac won’t buy it from the bank. This is a significant incentive for a lender because many banks need to sell their loans rather than retain them in portfolio in order to recapitalize and lend more.

I thought this was a terrific idea because stopped this tainted relationship structure between the person setting values and the person being paid on a commission if the value was high enough. But with this solution, a problem was created and that new problem outweighs the former problem.

Because of the way the HVCC is being implemented, most lenders are effectively incentivized to order appraisals through appraisal management companies. The best way I can describe much of this cottage industry is

>a centralized appraisal ordering and management organization run by 19 year old kids without any real estate experience who focus nearly exclusively on turn time and half market rate appraisal fees.

Kenneth Harney, of the nationally syndicated column, The Nation’s Housing in the Washington Post writes in his article: An Appraisal Upheaval

>When you apply for a mortgage to buy or refinance a house, should you be concerned that your appraiser is being paid much less than the $300 to $600 you’re charged, perhaps half?

>Should you know who pockets the rest, or that cut-rate fees are too low to attract the most experienced appraisers?

>Should you care that the appraiser might be pushed to come up with a number so quickly — almost overnight in some cases — that he or she doesn’t have the time to do a proper inspection and accurate evaluation of comparable properties, pending sales contracts and local market trends?

Without realizing it, Cuomo has moved the problem from “values biased high” to “values unreliable”

>But some prominent appraisers are scathing in their criticism of management firms. “Their quality is terrible — all they want you to do is crank it out at the lowest cost,” said Jonathan Miller, president and chief executive of Miller Samuel, one of the largest appraisal companies in the New York City area. Only “the least experienced people” are willing to do the work, he said, “and the product is unreliable.”

In recent issue of American Banker, Kate Berry wrote an article Re-Appraisal: How Revision is Recasting Expectations

>”You’re creating a situation where a lender is going to have to order a lot of appraisals from an AMC,” said Jonathan Miller, the president and chief executive officer of the New York appraisal firm Miller Samuel Inc.

>Mr. Miller said, “Appraisal-management companies are subject to the same pressure as mortgage brokers; only there’s actually more at stake. They’re almost more vulnerable” because most of the companies depend heavily on a few lender clients.

Do you remember the AMC known as eAppraise-it?

Cuomo sued them for all the reasons this agreement shouldn’t be implemented without modification.


4 Comments

  1. Edd Gillespie January 14, 2009 at 11:42 am

    Thanks for fighting on Jonathan. Mortgage appraisals of all kinds have been on a collision course with 100% unreliability for some time. The business of appraising has been trying to smother USPAP since it’s conception. I wonder if ASB will now water down the scope of work to encourage hurry-up cheapies? I mean who wants the consumers of mortgage appraisals to know how little work went into it?
    Incidentally, for those of you who still work in AMC mortgage related appraising, I think your scope of work should include the comment that you were rushed and paid way too little to complete the appraisal within the standards expressed and intended by USPAP.
    I read Harvey’s article and it just boggles my mind that appraisers apparently still have no voice. How can appraisals have credibility when nobody listening, or maybe you just follow the money to the title companies. Once you hit the end of the rainbow there it is. A big old pot of credibility? I have heard the following comment repeated on blogs and in other articles:
    ” The Title Appraisal Vendor Management Association, which represents third-party managers, denies that lower fees result in less accurate home valuations. Jeff Schurman, the group’s executive director, said “there’s no evidence of that,” and if there were, major banks and mortgage lenders would not hire them. Appraisal management firms offer lenders valuation services anywhere in the country they’re needed, Schurman said, and they deliver them quickly. He added that the portion of the appraisal fee the management companies take is “reasonable” given the overhead savings they provide lenders.”
    Schurman is correct when he says there is no evidence to connect cheap and fast with sloppy and unreliable. We dropped the ball. And we dropped it when we decided fee and turn time was an individual business decision and not part of the scope of work that should be revealed. And then there is our review system that pretty much sucks when it comes to detecting quality on a Fannie form. The appraisal industry has its own word for almost everything (another problem) and its word for quality is credibility. Credibility is, according to USPAP, in the eye of the reader, and the attenuated summary on a 1004 has so little support included it that any appraisal reviewer worth his salt would refuse to review one.
    The mortgage end of things is about making money fast for the lenders and getting those MSB’s bundled and out the door to Norway. That is what mortgage lending is about and clearly appraisers are expected to enable it.
    Maybe we appraisers just take our trade way too seriously.

  2. Bill Giblin January 14, 2009 at 7:18 pm

    As a Realtor, I do not get paid until the closing. Yet, there are some of us out here that have been questioning some home appraisals for years. Many of us still shaking our heads over what homes were “appraised” at during 2001 -2006. Isn’t Cuomo aware of the settlement by Wamu concerning appraisals? Shoddy work or collusion can often lead to the same mess: Home Buyers paying too much. Even with getting a Listing hanging in the balance there is no way some of us will try to justify phoney-baloney worth and will avoid whenever possible bogus lenders, appraisers, etc. I like sleeping at night.

  3. Mary January 21, 2009 at 10:41 am

    I’m from a different state, but stumbled on this article. I am currently going through a divorce and our house is on short sale. Back in 2006 the house was appraised way too high, and, like others, we refinanced too much. Now, there has been an offer on the property and, again, the mortgage company’s appraisal is much higher than the realtor’s appraisal and they are rejecting the offer based on that. These mortgage companies have not changed their tune whatsoever.

  4. Anonymous February 12, 2009 at 6:02 pm

    reply to Mary..Typical..blame somebody else for you borrowing too much and for your financial mis-managment.

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