America’s First Medal at the Nazi Olympics Was For…Town Planning
Excerpt: Yes, from 1928 until 1948, town planning was an actual Olympic sport.
Town planning fell under an “architectural design” category at the Olympic art competition. The field that year was dominated by German entries. Yet the first U.S. medal of the Olympics went to Lay, a New York architect, for his ambitious blueprint to modernize Marine Park in Brooklyn.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/americas-first-medal-at-the-nazi-olympics-was-fortown-planning
My comment: I love these Obscure Olympic Facts ;>
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Photo blurring gone waay overboard!!
Excerpt: At issue was the ubiquitous “client requirement” involving digital masking of people from images. While lenders and AMCs wave the Fair Housing penalty flag in order to assure compliance; there is NO such law. Never has been.
Lenders need to re-examine the reason for all of these pointless and invasive interior shots. They add nothing meaningful to the file. Nobody is laying out mortgages for Beanie Baby collections and bad drapes. So why are appraisers wasting megapixels on decorating images?
AMCs are on notice to cease demanding and insisting that appraisers do digital staging. That is clearly in violation of Illinois law.
Click here to read the full article plus the comments, of course…
http://appraisersblogs.com/digital-staging-amc-fair-housing-myth
My comment: Blurring interior pictures on walls, personal objects, etc. seems very excessive. Don’t know about rooms with strange devices and chains hanging from walls and ceilings, etc ;> Maybe appraisers will only be able to appraise vacant homes with nothing in them without getting requests for blurring. This applies only to AMCs doing business in Illinois, but maybe the AMCs will quit doing it in other states.
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Schools and property values
Excerpt: Neighborhoods with at least one good elementary school have greater home values as well as higher home price appreciation over the long term compared to homes without good schools, according to the 2016 Schools a Housing Report released today by ATTOM Data Solutions, the new parent company of RealtyTrac.
ATTOM analyzed home values and price appreciation in 2016, along with the 2015 average test scores in 18,968 elementary schools nationwide in 4,435 zip codes.
A good school is defined as a school with an overall test score of at least 30% above the state average.
Of the zip codes with at least one good school, the average estimated home value was $427,402. This is 77% higher than the average home value of $241,096 in the zip codes without good schools.
http://www.housingwire.com/articles/37704-back-to-school-heres-how-it-impacts-home-values
My comment: Of course, zip code is not always the best method because it does not look at individual school ratings. Last year CU could not consider this important factor. Maybe they do it now, or will in the future
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Who’s on your “approved client” list and why? Fees are going up. Don’t work for low fees with lots of hassles!!
My AMC Rating Grid can really help decide who to dump!!
New in the August 2016 paid Appraisal Today newsletter
Excerpts:
Scope creep
Why is there so much AMC scope creep? AMCs work for lenders. They do what the lenders say or they will be out of business, just like appraisers. Lenders are very worried about bad loans. After all the post-2008 buy backs by investors, lenders increased their appraisal requirements. Lenders are still worried about buy backs.
Their credit requirements have not loosened much since 2008. Some AMCs require their appraisers to adhere to all their lenders’ requirements. More savvy AMCs send their appraisers the requirements of the specific lender the appraisal is going to.
How can you tell which AMCs are doing this? Those that have pages and pages of requirements vs. those who send you a much shorter list of requirements from the lender who is getting the appraisal. Many appraisers get work from the same lender from different AMCs. Sometimes the list of requirements are quite different because the AMC adds lots of other lenders’ requirements to the list.
Why work for AMCs that make you adhere to the requirements of all their lenders?
Topics include: why it is important to keep track of changes such as fees, non-AMC appraisal issues, how to get rating scores for your clients to decide who to dump and evaluate AMCs who keep calling trying to get you to take orders, client credit risk, etc
To read the full article and Rating Grid, subscribe to the paid Appraisal Today.
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How to fix the appraiser shortage now!!!
The residential lender appraisal system is broken.
The problem is NOT primarily low fees, licensing requirements, college degree, aging appraiser population, reluctance to hire “competitors”, etc.
The Problem: for the first time, there is no way to bring in trainees during boom times and sign on their own.
Since the 1970s, when Freddie and Fannie started and refis accelerated, lender volume had huge ups and downs, depending on interest rates. Lenders hired armies of trainees and laid them off when business slowed down. During the last big boom prior to the mortgage meltdown, fee appraisers hired the trainees and let them go. Now, very few appraisers are hiring trainees, except friends and relatives.
Lots of complaints now about the appraiser shortage. The Appraisal Foundation is considering lowering licensing requirements for certified appraisers. But, this will take years to change.
If lenders accept licensed appraisers, who do not need a college degree but need 150 hours of college classes, this will really help. A minimum of 12 months and 2000 hours of experience is required. The certified appraiser requirements will not have to be reduced. Certified res is 2.5 years of experience.
The AQB experience requirements are the minimum. I am in California, which has the AQB requirement: “Personally inspect the property with the Trainee until the supervisor determines the Trainee is competent to make unsupervised inspections, in accordance with the Competency Rule of USPAP for the type of property being appraised.” Some states have gone way beyond this, requiring the supervisor to inspect the subject with the trainee for the two years of experience. e supervision.
Lenders who want to switch from conventional and FHA will not be able to use licensed or trainees, of course. But, this is much, much better than weeks of delays getting appraisals, especially for purchases.
| Residential (AL) | 150 hours, covering specific modules including the 15-hour National USPAP Course (or its equivalent as determined by the AQB); and 30 semester units of college-level education, OR an Associate’s degree or higher (in any field). | 2,000 hours and encompassing no less than 12 months of acceptable appraisal experience. | Any non-complex 1-4 family property with a transaction value up to $1 million; and non-residential property with a transaction value up to $250,000 |
| Certified Residential (AR) | 200 hours, covering specific modules, including the 15-hour National USPAP Course; and a Bachelor’s degree or higher. | 2,500 hours and encompassing no less than 2.5 years (30 months) of acceptable appraisal experience. | Any 1-4 family property without regard to transaction value or complexity; and non-residential property with a transaction value up to $250,000. |
For existing appraisers, this is a boom time with no new competitors entering the business. Fees are increasing dramatically and have increased this much in the past. The minus, of course, is the inevitable pressure to eliminate full appraisals and use alternate valuation products.
WHAT DO YOU THINK? POST YOUR COMMENTS AT https://appraisaltoday.com/2016/08/10/fix-appraiser-shortage-now and read the comments from other appraisers!!
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HOW TO USE THE NUMBERS BELOW. Appraisals are ordered after the loan application. These numbers tell you the future for the next few weeks. For more information on how they are compiled, go to https://www.mba.org
Note: I publish a graph of this data every month in my printed newsletter, Appraisal Today. For more information or get a FREE sample issue go to www.appraisaltoday.com/products or send an email to info@appraisaltoday.com . Or call 800-839-0227, MTW 8AM to noon, Pacific time.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (August 10, 2016)
Mortgage applications increased 7.1 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending August 5, 2016.
The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased 7.1 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased 7 percent compared with the previous week. The Refinance Index increased 10 percent from the previous week. The Government Refinance index was up 27 percent and the Conventional Refinance Index was up 6 percent from one week earlier. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 3 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index increased 2 percent compared with the previous week and was 13 percent higher than the same week one year ago.
The refinance share of mortgage activity increased to 62.4 percent of total applications from 60.7 percent the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity remained unchanged at 4.7 percent of total applications.
The FHA share of total applications increased to 10.0 percent from 9.4 percent the week prior. The VA share of total applications increased to 13.0 percent from 12.1 percent the week prior. The USDA share of total applications decreased to 0.6 percent from 0.7 percent the week prior.
The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($417,000 or less) decreased to 3.65 percent from 3.67 percent, with points increasing to 0.34 from 0.30 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value ratio (LTV) loans. The effective rate decreased from last week.
The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with jumbo loan balances (greater than $417,000) decreased to 3.64 percent from 3.65 percent, with points increasing to 0.31 from 0.24 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans. The effective rate increased from last week.
The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages backed by the FHA decreased to 3.52 percent from 3.54 percent, with points increasing to 0.33 from 0.32 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans. The effective rate decreased from last week.
The average contract interest rate for 15-year fixed-rate mortgages remained unchanged at 2.93 percent, with points decreasing to 0.34 from 0.36 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans. The effective rate decreased from last week.
The average contract interest rate for 5/1 ARMs decreased to 2.81 percent from 2.90 percent, with points increasing to 0.32 from 0.24 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans. The effective rate decreased from last week.
The survey covers over 75 percent of all U.S. retail residential mortgage applications, and has been conducted weekly since 1990. Respondents include mortgage bankers, commercial banks and thrifts. Base period and value for all indexes is March 16, 1990=100.
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