Newz: Paired Sales Analysis, The Last Appraiser,
24 Hour Turn Times?
September 12, 2025
What’s in This Newsletter (In Order, Scroll Down)
- LIA AD: Why do Claims get Settled?
- Paired Sales Analysis: Tips and Tools for Appraisers
- Home on rare stretch of California’s Lost Coast hits market for $11M in Ferndale, CA Some Assembly Required
- Combining Tools for Appraisals By Brent Bowen
- The 24-Hour Appraisal Diet: Slim on Time, Light on Credibility
- A Review of MEIN COMP: The Last Appraiser by Desiree Mehbod
- Mortgage applications decreased 1.2 percent from one week earlier
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Tools To Support Appraisal Adjustments
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Paired Sales Analysis: Tips and Tools for Appraisers
By Kevin Hecht
Excerpts: As a professional real estate appraiser, you know that paired sales analysis is a reliable and popular method for determining the value of specific property features and providing market-based evidence to support appraisal adjustments.
Though not without challenges, paired sales analysis is a valuable technique to have in your appraisal toolkit. Mastering this method will help you develop more accurate, credible, and defensible appraisals.
Uses
Primarily used in the sales comparison approach, paired sales analysis is particularly useful for estimating the value of unique property attributes such as:
- Location advantages (corner lots, cul-de-sac positions, or waterfront access)
- Scenic views or privacy features
- Property upgrades (pools, finished basements, luxury kitchens)
Importance
For property appraisers, paired sales analysis is an essential tool because it helps ensure that appraisal adjustments are supported by quantitative data. Rather than relying on cost estimates or subjective opinions, you can use actual sales data to support your value conclusions. This evidence strengthens your appraisal’s defensibility and helps you comply with USPAP.
Additional Topics
- Step-by-Step Methodology of a Paired Sales Analysis
- Paired Sales Analysis Tips and Best Practices
My comments: Paired sales has been used for decades by appraisers. Now, statistical analysis including graphs is available plus software that can determine adjustments. In the 8/25 issue of this newsletter, an appraiser survey of appraisal adjustments said that paired sales was the number one adjustment method used by appraisers.
I use paired sales for unusual adjustments, such as discussed above. For example, for many years I lived in waterfront homes, which is not unusual in my city. One of my homes was in a small development of similar homes built in the 1940s. Matched paired sales was very easy. Another non tract home built in the 1940s did not have similar homes nearby and paired sales did not work very well there.
To read more, Click Here
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Home on rare stretch of California’s Lost Coast hits market for $11M in Ferndale, CA
Excerpts: 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, 5,500 sq.ft. 788 acre lot (working ranch)
The estate features a rare, walkable mile of Lost Coast shoreline
When Alex and Miranda Moore bought a historic Humboldt County ranch on the edge of the iconic Lost Coast five years ago, the deal came down to a single condition. It wasn’t financing, insurance or whether the century-old barn still stood square.
It was the zebras. The animals — five of them now — are a legacy of previous owners who tried to transform the ranch into a French country estate, complete with imported thatch roofs and hand-chiseled stone walls. That vision fizzled, leaving behind half-finished projects and a herd of zebras that have since claimed the property as their own.“
The kitchen features high-end appliances and is “ready for your final finishing touches,” according to the listing. While most of the main level has been modernized, the second floor “remains unfinished” but the sale includes conceptual plans to create four bedrooms and three bathrooms.
There is also a hay barn from the 1800s along with a 900-square-foot garden house found on the sprawling lot that is also home to an abundance of wildlife.
It lies just below Cape Mendocino, the westernmost point in California, and just north of the King Range Wilderness, the federally managed sweep of mountains and shoreline that defines the Lost Coast.
Unlike the sheer cliffs that dominate much of the Lost Coast, this property offers a rare mile of gentle, walkable shoreline. “There’s no, like, big erosion or cliffs or slides like you see in a lot of … California’s really rugged coastline. This one is really gentle,” Moore (agent) said. Beyond the beach, the land cuts inland into forests and meadows,
To read more, Click Here
To see the listing with 53 photos and a virtual tour, Click Here
My comments: Many thanks to subscriber Joe Lynch for this listing. He says
“The Lost Coast is amazing. If I’d won the lottery, this might have been on my shopping list. ”
If you have an interesting listing in your area, send me the link. Your name may appear in this newsletter!
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Some Assembly Required
Combining Tools for Appraisals
By Brent Bowen
Excerpts: Many appraisers have expanded their tool kits, learning to apply different tools in different circumstances. An example would be an appraiser deciding that depreciated cost is best when adjusting for a detached garage, while grouped pairs is best for an adverse view, and regression is best for gross living area. However, in each case the appraiser is still using a single tool to solve each problem.
What can work even better is combining tools, much in the same way that you might use a hammer and chisel together to accomplish a task that neither does as well on its own. To use the tools to best effect, order matters. For example, in masonry or woodworking, using the hammer to strike the chisel works very well, whereas using the chisel to strike the hammer just makes a mess.
Consider what it might look like to combine the tools of theory, logic, experience, cost, and sales data analysis (itself, comprised of many tools) to a solar PV system on the roof of a residential property. The ordering of those tools was intentional, beginning with theory and ending with sales data. That may seem counterintuitive, but data by itself is a poor storyteller. (In a recent presentation, I showed how the same set of data could indicate a GLA adjustment from $110/sf to $190/sf, depending on how it was analyzed.)
The author uses a solar PV system on the roof of a residential property as a sample property
Other topics:
- Theory
- Logic
- Experience
- Cost
- Sales Data
To read more, Click Here
My comments: I had never thought of this. I love to read about new ideas for doing appraisals! This is my 50th year of appraising. Great that there are still new ideas.
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What is New in the New URAR/UAD 3.6?
In the June 2025 issue of Appraisal Today
What you can do now – learn to use a tablet for data collection in the field
A tablet is strongly recommended for data collection on the New URAR. Get
your forms software company’s current inspection app and start using a tablet for your current form reports now. If your software company has a new inspection app, start practicing with it.
Can the New URAR be used for non-lender appraisals?
No, per the GSEs who developed the New URAR. Much of the data they
want does not apply to non-lender appraisals. You can use the old forms from your software vendor.
Why do the GSEs want so many more fields that don’t seem to relate to appraisals?
They want more data and consider appraisers to be the most reliable source.
What about AMC fees? The most important question!
The testing period recently started. Maybe we will get an idea on fees. They will definitely need to be significantly higher than current AMC fees.
For this article, I went though sample Scenario SF-1 (Report) and looked at every new data requirement.
A lot has of data from the current URAR has been moved to different locations in the New URAR Report. there is much new data required.
To read the full article, plus 2+ years of previous issues, subscribe to the paid Appraisal Today. I have several other articles on UAD 3.6 also.
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The 24-Hour Appraisal Diet: Slim on Time, Light on Credibility
by AppraisersBlogs
Excerpts: Brian Zitin’s declaration that the appraisal “bottleneck” has been obliterated by Reggora’s 24-hour turnaround reads less like a breakthrough and more like a tech startup’s victory lap around a profession it barely understands. According to the post, decades of valuation nuance, regulatory compliance, and boots on the ground expertise have now been solved, at no extra cost to the borrower, in every location, and without compromising standards. All it took, apparently, was a few million dollars and a launch video.
It’s a bold claim, not because speed isn’t desirable, but because speed without substance is just marketing. The idea that rural appraisals, where town records are locked behind part-time clerks, and urban or suburban assignments, where tenant access is more art than science and rarely on demand, can all be completed in 24 hours without cutting corners is a fantasy dressed in venture capital.
If this were truly USPAP compliant, it would mean appraisers are now clairvoyant, able to verify data that hasn’t been shared, inspect properties they haven’t entered, and reconcile comps that don’t exist, all while maintaining the same fee structure. Miraculous.
If Reggora has truly cracked the code, if they’ve built a system that supports appraisers in meeting every standard, verifying every detail, and delivering credible results in a single day, then let’s see it. Not in a sizzle reel, but in a full report, from a real assignment, in a real town. Until then, the applause will remain on mute, because in the real world, valuation isn’t a bottleneck, it’s a safeguard, and some things are worth waiting for.
To read more, Click Here
My comments: I have been following Reggora since the VC (Venture Capital) funded company started. Thanks to Appraisers Blogs for writing this article.
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A Review of MEIN COMP: The Last Appraiser (Book)
by Desiree Mehbod
Excerpts: If Orwell moonlighted as an appraiser, and Kafka had a side hustle in compliance, “MEIN COMP: The Last Appraiser” by David Samnick would be their love child. But this isn’t dystopian fantasy, it’s a forensic autopsy of a profession that was methodically dismantled while regulators smiled, and algorithms sharpened their knives.
Samnick’s book is fiction the way a courtroom sketch is fiction. The names are changed, but the faces are familiar, and the tactics are real. Through a cast of fictional appraisers, each representing a phase in the slow-motion collapse of independent valuation, we witness the insertion of middlemen, the tightening of compliance nooses, the scapegoating campaigns, and the final algorithmic coup.
The foreword opens with a chilling riff on Niemöller’s famous warning: “First they came for the underwriters…” It closes with a line that doesn’t need carving into stone. It just needs to be remembered by anyone who thinks their profession is safe: “They came for the appraisers. Tomorrow, they will come for you. Who will be left to speak?”
This book doesn’t ask for pity, it demands attention. It documents how appraisal management companies (AMCs) inserted themselves into the process, siphoning fees while adding no value. How compliance morphed into a stranglehold. How accusations, often baseless, were weaponized to silence dissent. And how automation was sold as progress, while expertise was quietly buried.
To read more plus the appraiser comments, Click Here
My comments: Written by an appraiser. Amazon has a good sample from the book. I purchased the book the day I read this blog post. I had never heard of the book. Thanks to Desiree (Founder of Appraisersblogs) for letting us know about it. The September issue of Appraisal Today has articles on Appraisal Regulatory Chaos.
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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, Click Here.
Note: I publish a graph of this data every month in my paid monthly newsletter, Appraisal Today. For more information or get a FREE sample go to www.appraisaltoday.com/order Or call 510-865-8041, MTW, 7 AM to noon, Pacific time.
My comments: Rates are going up and down. We are all waiting for rates to drop in 2025.
Mortgage applications decreased 1.2 percent from one week earlier
WASHINGTON, D.C. (September 3, 2025) — Mortgage applications decreased 1.2 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending August 29, 2025.
The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decreased 1.2 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 3 percent compared with the previous week. The Refinance Index increased 1 percent from the previous week and was 20 percent higher than the same week one year ago. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 3 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index decreased 6 percent compared with the previous week and was 17 percent higher than the same week one year ago.
“Mortgage rates declined last week, with the 30-year fixed rate decreasing to its lowest level since April to 6.64 percent. However, that was not enough to spark more application activity,” said Joel Kan, MBA’s Vice President and Deputy Chief Economist. “Refinance applications saw a small increase from the previous week, driven by FHA and VA refinance applications, but conventional refinances declined. The FHA rate is averaging about 30 basis points lower than the conventional rate in 2025, which has made those loans relatively more appealing to eligible borrowers. Purchase activity pulled back, after a four-week run of increases, as slower homebuying activity led to declines in applications across the various loan types.”
The refinance share of mortgage activity increased to 46.9 percent of total applications from 45.3 percent the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity increased to 8.8 percent of total applications.
The FHA share of total applications increased to 19.9 percent from 19.1 percent the week prior. The VA share of total applications increased to 13.8 percent from 13.3 percent the week prior. The USDA share of total applications remained unchanged at 0.5 percent from the week prior.
The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($806,500 or less) decreased to 6.64 percent from 6.69 percent, with points decreasing to 0.59 from 0.60 (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 $806,500) decreased to 6.58 percent from 6.67 percent, with points decreasing to 0.39 from 0.44 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans. The effective rate decreased from last week.
The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages backed by the FHA decreased to 6.31 percent from 6.35 percent, with points decreasing to 0.74 from 0.80 (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 decreased to 5.84 percent from 6.03 percent, with points increasing to 0.84 from 0.77 (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 5.90 percent from 5.94 percent, with points decreasing to 0.34 from 0.68 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans. The effective rate decreased from last week.
The survey covers U.S. closed-end residential mortgage applications originated through retail and consumer direct channels. The survey has been conducted weekly since 1990. Respondents include mortgage bankers, commercial banks, thrifts, and credit unions. Base period and value for all indexes is March 16, 1990=100.Ann
O’Rourke, MAI, SRA, MBA
Appraiser and Publisher Appraisal Today
1826 Clement Ave. Suite 203 Alameda, CA 94501
Phone: 510-865-8041
Email: ann@appraisaltoday.com
Online: www.appraisaltoday.com
