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News By Edition
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Valuation Review Edition
July 7, 2014
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Valuation Expo Coverage: VA sounds the call to join organization’s appraisal panel
Posted Date: Wednesday, June 25, 2014
Gerald Kifer, supervisory appraiser at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), told attendees Tuesday afternoon at the 15th Annual Valuation Expo in Las Vegas about the VA’s desire to expand the organization’s appraiser panel, and why now is an ideal time for appraisers to apply.
The VA is in the process of implementing CoreLogic’s LoanSafe Appraisal Manager in order to measure and grade the appraisals that are done for the nation’s current and former military members looking for homeownership.
Because of the heightened scrutiny that will come along with the adoption of LoanSafe, Kifer predicts that there could be a natural shakeup amongst the organization’s current panel, which could create openings that need to be filled.
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Appraisal Institute names new hire
Posted Date: Monday, June 23, 2014
The Appraisal Institute, the nation’s largest professional association of real estate appraisers, announced the hiring of a new director of professional services and resources on June 17. In this position, the newly appointed director will be tasked with coordinating specific operational activities relative to the Appraisal Institute’s mission. Keep reading to learn about the new hire.
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LRES names new vice president of asset management
Posted Date: Wednesday, June 18, 2014
LRES, a national provider of residential and commercial valuations and asset management for the mortgage, banking, credit union and real estate industries, announced June 17 that the company has named a new vice president of REO asset management. Keep reading to learn about the hire.
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Prospect Mortgage names former Fannie executive as CEO
Posted Date: Wednesday, June 25, 2014
Prospect Mortgage LLC, a residential mortgage lender, and its growth capital partner, Sterling Partners, announced the appointment of Prospect’s new chief executive officer. According to Prospect, the hire, a former Fannie Mae CEO, will be tasked with leading the company into its next phase of growth by leveraging his years of experience within the mortgage finance industry. Keep reading to see who will be taking the reins at Prospect.
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Housing production falls, but builders brace for upswing
Posted Date: Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Declines in both single-family and multifamily housing starts pushed nationwide housing production down in May, according to newly released figures from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Census Bureau. However, single-family permits, which can be an indicator of future building activity, rose during the same month. Keep reading to see what experts said this data portends for the housing market in the near future.
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Seattle couple arrested after stealing appraiser’s identity, preforming appraisals
Posted Date: Wednesday, June 25, 2014
A Seattle area couple arrested in connection with a massive mortgage fraud scheme involving more than 400 fraudulent home appraisals faces serious prison time.
Douglas White and his girlfriend, Diana Merritt, were arrested last week after a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development investigation produced evidence that White stole the identity of his former employer, Tom Reed, a licensed real estate appraiser, and used his name to carry out more than 400 fake home appraisals from January 2009 to October 2012.
According to prosecutors, White carried out appraisals using Reed’s name, license number and electronic signature and charged up to $800 per appraisal. Reed, the founder of Washington Appraisal Reviews Inc. in Marysville, hired White as an apprentice in 2004, but White was twice unable to pass state licensing examinations. White stole Reed’s identity sometime in 2008 after he was laid off, prosecutors said.
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Ohio lawmakers introduce new appraiser bill
Posted Date: Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Legislation introduced June 4 in the Ohio House of Representatives seeks to regulate appraisal management companies (AMCs) and make changes to the Real Estate Appraiser Licensing Law in order to comply with appraiser-focused provisions of the Truth in Lending Act (TILA).
In July 2010, as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, TILA was amended to establish new requirements for appraisal independence for consumer credit transactions secured by the consumer’s principal dwelling. The amendments, listed in TILA Section 129e, are designed to ensure that real estate appraisals used to support creditors’ underwriting decisions are based on the appraiser’s independent professional judgment, free of any influence or pressure that may be exerted by parties that have an interest in the transaction. The amendments also seek to ensure that creditors and their agents pay customary and reasonable fees to appraisers.
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Louisiana bill amends state appraiser criteria
Posted Date: Monday, June 23, 2014
On May 22, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal signed into law a measure that makes changes to the state’s Louisiana Real Estate Appraisers Law. House Bill 1018, which will take effect Aug. 1, amends provisions pertaining to the Louisiana Real Estate Appraisers Board; applications for examination, experience review and license renewal; nonresident licensure; continuing education requirements; and disciplinary proceedings.
Under HB 1018, members of the Louisiana Real Estate Appraisers Board will be allowed to serve for three consecutive three-year terms in the future; the previous language limited members to two three-year terms.
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Hawaii law pushes transparency for appraisers acting as arbitrators
Posted Date: Wednesday, June 25, 2014
Finding what they called a “lack of openness and transparency” in Hawaii’s oversight of appraisers acting as arbitrators, lawmakers in the Aloha State have enacted legislation requiring arbitration awards, records of awards and related supporting materials to be public records. House Bill 1830 became law without the governor’s signature April 30, and the new law takes effect July 1.
According to materials filed with the state legislature, existing state law requires appraisers acting as arbitrators to fully report the basis for an award and to certify compliance with the nationally accepted Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice when valuing properties and determining market value or market rent. Compliance with these standards ensures adherence to professional standards that protect the parties to an arbitration and Hawaii consumers. But HB 1830’s sponsors pointed out that while Hawaii has relatively few commercial appraisers who specialize in these matters, these individuals or firms are the exclusive determiners of the market value or market rents of leasehold property in Hawaii. This results in members of the same profession gathering and selecting market data, presenting that data to arbitration panels as expert witnesses and then deciding the matter as appointed arbitrators, they argued.
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A la mode expands Mercury Mobile platform for Android users
Posted Date: Monday, June 23, 2014
A la mode, a Florida-based provider of appraisal software, announced June 23 that Mercury Mobile, a free mobile app enabling appraisers to respond to new Mercury Network orders instantly, is now available for Android as a download using the Google Play store. Mercury Network powers more than 20,000 appraisal orders a day and is used by more than 600 of the nation’s lenders and AMCs to manage scalable, efficient and compliant valuation processes. The release of the Android version could have a significant and immediate effect on the industry’s efficiency. Keep reading to learn how.
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PrimeLending to adopt Global DMS valuation management software
Posted Date: Wednesday, June 25, 2014
Global DMS, a Pennsylvania-based provider of Web-based compliant valuation management software, announced that PrimeLending, a national residential mortgage lender, successfully implemented its eTrac valuation platform to compliantly automate the lender’s entire appraisal process. Keep reading to learn what this might mean for PrimeLending and its appraiser clients.
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Interactive ‘heat map’ helps correlate disaster risk, home value for over 110 million properties
Posted Date: Monday, June 23, 2014
RealtyTrac, a provider of housing data and analytics, released its Natural Disaster Housing Risk Report on June 18 based on the natural disaster risk for every county in the U.S. Areas are classified as one of the following: Very High Risk, High Risk, Medium Risk, Low Risk and Very Low Risk. The results of the report were compiled to create an interactive “heat map” that shows how risk fluctuates throughout the country when it comes to the likelihood of hurricanes, tornados and earthquakes, and also, how home prices fluctuate accordingly.
Users can use this freely available information to find disaster risk, home price information and additional property data for more than 110 million properties throughout the country on the RealtyTrac-run Homefacts.com simply by typing in a property address.
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FHA warns lenders against deceptive advertising of reverse mortgages
Posted Date: Wednesday, June 25, 2014
The Federal Housing Administration published a Mortgagee Letter June 18 reminding lenders participating in the agency’s Home Equity Conversion Mortgage Program to make certain that senior borrowers are fully informed of all their options when applying for reverse mortgages. FHA’s Mortgagee Letter also reinforces the agency’s prohibition against misleading or deceptive advertising and that this prohibition extends to misleading or deceptive descriptions of the HECM program. Keep reading to see the details of what the FHA said lenders are prohibited from doing.
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Fannie director explains what’s holding housing back
Posted Date: Monday, June 23, 2014
October Research, LLC’s National Settlement Services Summit (NS3) held June 9-11 in New Orleans brought together experts from across industries to look at how shifting trends are helping shape the housing market and the businesses that rely on it.
Most agree that the U.S. economic and housing sectors are steadily improving and that they will rebound to historically normal levels, for the most part, within a year or two.
But there is a segment of the population that has the potential to either supercharge the recovery, or hold it back, depending on a few variables — and there is a good chance one of these individuals might be currently living in your basement.
First-time homebuyers are making up a significantly smaller portion of the market than is historically normal — these buyers accounted for just 29 percent of all buyers in April, according to the latest data from the National Association of Realtors, which is down from a historical average of around 40 percent.
If you are looking for evidence to pinpoint why the market is still tepid, this could be considered the smoking gun.
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USRES names new national sales representative
Posted Date: Monday, June 23, 2014
USRES, a provider of financial support services for valuating and liquidating real estate assets and parent company of technology platform RES.NET, announced July 23 that it has hired a new national sales representative. The new addition, who has more than 16 years of experience serving Fortune 500 clients and stakeholder executives, will assist the national sales team in its expansion of valuation services for origination lenders, banks, hedge funds and institutional and private investors.
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Proposed AMC rules draw comments from across the industry
Posted Date: Thursday, June 19, 2014
While the appraisal and mortgage lending industries are largely supportive of a proposed rule that would implement Dodd-Frank’s minimum requirements for state registration and supervision of appraisal management companies (AMCs), many individuals, companies and trade groups are concerned with certain definitions of the proposal and some of the challenges involved in the logistics of different state regulatory entities taking on registration and enforcement responsibilities.
That’s the consensus among the nearly six-dozen commenters who responded to a request for public comment on the proposal issued March 24 by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) and the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA). The six federal regulators gave the industry 60 days to comment on a proposed rule that would carry out Section 1473 of the Dodd-Frank Act and Section 1124 to Title XI of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act, and establish minimum requirements to be applied by states in the registration and supervision of AMCs.
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New app provides detailed property information for over 125 million homes
Posted Date: Wednesday, June 18, 2014
RealtyTrac, a provider of comprehensive housing data and analytics, announced the launch of a new mobile app for Apple iPhone and iPad devices that gives users the ability to view detailed real estate information for over 125 million U.S. homes. The app shows foreclosure status and details, estimated market value, property characteristics, property taxes, sales history, open loans and equity, among other pieces of information. Keep reading to learn about all the functionality of the new app.
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