NEWZ// 1-28-16 Not C-R fees-fined/AI twitter hacked/Building permits?/50 castles/adjustments

 

50 castles in 50 states

Excerpt:

The United States of America is not typically thought of as a land of castles, and with good reason-the uniting of the American states coincided, not coincidentally, with the beginning of the end of the era in which kings and queens ruled over everything, holing up in huge fortified houses so that the peasants and/or invading barbarians couldn’t kill them.

But in a way, that’s too bad, because the U.S.A. is a land of excess, and there’s nothing more excessive than a castle. And there are some castles in this country-maybe more than you’d expect-which range from (mostly) vanity projects, to mini golf courses, to even a few places that originally served some military purpose. Not only that, but many of them are currently for sale. If you’ve ever dreamed of owning a castle of your own, you could, for as little as a few hundred thousand dollars, or as much as a over ten million. (If you want to have your wedding in a castle, the options are even more vast.) In fact, we found a castle in every state in the U.S.A

Here are a few:

– This Illinois Castle Costs a Mere $795,000

– Majestic Castle in the Adirondacks Offers Turrets, Knights, and – Secret Passageways for $12.8M

– Ludicrous $4.9M Texas Castle Really Loves Turrets

My comment: Photos and links for more info for all 50 castles!!

Easy to view – scroll down the page, no excessive popup ads.

Check it out at:

http://curbed.com/tags/castle

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Appraisal volume starts to lose momentum

Reverses last week’s rise

Posted January 26, 2016

 

Excerpts:

Appraisal volume erased most of last week’s rise, falling 4.1% for the week of Jan. 17, the most recent report from a la mode, an appraisal forms software company that tracks appraisal volume throughout the country, showed.

A week ago, appraisal volume grew 5%, following a strong surge the week prior.

“While appraisal volume started the year with a strong recovery from the Christmas and New Year slump, it has not seen the energy that mortgage applications have shown. This is perplexing but could be because of lenders still getting used to the new TRID procedures and delaying ordering appraisals or just that the applications are falling out and not turning into mortgages,” he continued.

Click here to read other comments and see the data.

http://www.housingwire.com/articles/36111-appraisal-volume-starts-to-lose-momentum 

My comment: this report is posted every week. Please also see the MBA Weekly Mortgage Loan Origination volume report at the end of every weekly email newsletter, posted on Friday. Appraisal ordering follows originations, so MBA is slightly ahead of the a la mode report.

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POLL: Do you check to see if permits were pulled on remodeling on subject properties?

Source: www.appraisalport.com Vote in their current poll: 

Do you consider appraisal trade groups important to the industry?

My comment: A controversial topic. I’m not surprised at the results. However, if permits are online and free I don’t know why appraisers would not get them. In my city, free online records only go back to about 1970. Most of the homes were built before 1940. It costs $15.25 to get a full permit history and it can take up to a week to get it. The old records are a bit flakey, such as “remodeling” or something else very obscure. Lots and lots of unpermitted work in my city. But, in nearby cities with a lot of tract homes built since 1950, work without permits is not done very often. I was told by a lender’s chief appraiser many years ago not to pull permits so the borrower would “not get into trouble”.For quite awhile, I have been pulling the old permits when needed and run the online permits on all properties. In other cities, if something does not “look right”, such as an addition, I pull the permits. 

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THIS TOPIC? POST YOUR COMMENTS AT www.appraisaltodayblog.com !

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Coming in the February 2015 Appraisal Today paid newsletter, available Monday, Feb. 1 

Adjustments, Part 1 – Are you making too many adjustments 

Huge change in supporting adjustments since Fannie’s CU started looking at them. State regulators also want to see adjustment support – don’t get sanctioned. Some reviewers want to see support. Etc. 

Some of the topics: 

– How are appraisers supporting adjustments?

– What are the most frequent adjustments?

– What are state appraisal boards looking for?

– What is CU looking for?

– Do adjustments really make a difference in the final value?

– Qualitative vs. Quantitative adjustments

– The best adjustment sources of information

Part 2 will be on types of adjustments. 

FREE TIP: 

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Appraisal Institute falls victim to Twitter hack

Posted January 22, 2016, last Thursday

Excerpt:

Instead of tweets about the appraisal industry, tweets emanating from the Appraisal Institute’s account for the last 18 hours or so have more to do with Playboy Magazine, Hooters, David Hasselhoff, links to “sexy” videos, and other inappropriate tweets. 

Among other tweets, the hacked Appraisal Institute account tweeted out “to all staff and employees: because its so warm out today, you have to work an extra 2 hours pretending to do actual work” and “new company policy in effect: at social gatherings and events, having fun during such events is forbidden. Unless authorized.”

 As of last Friday: “It appears that the Appraisal Institute Twitter hacking of 2016 is now over, but we’ll always have the screenshots.”

Very interesting. All the old tweets were lost, except for re-tweets. See lots more, including some of the tweets at:

http://www.housingwire.com/articles/36086

 Comments from the Appraisal Institute: ” The Appraisal Institute’s Twitter account and YouTube channel were compromised last week. Twitter has since been restored, temporarily using the handle: @RealAI_National. We’re in the process of restoring our YouTube channel.” Regarding who did it: “We are investigating the matter and have no further comment at this time.”

 

My comments: I knew I shoulda re-subscribed to the AI twitter feed!! I originally subscribed in 2010 but have not been getting any tweets. I have never had any twitter feed I subscribe to get hacked… I think that the AI will get a lot of new Twitter subscribers, including me!! Subscribe to @RealAI_National. Currently 3,936 followers.  

At the bottom of the article is a comment post by Jason Constantine: “This was the work of one, former disgruntled employee with a shady criminal past. He was jaded because he was replaced with another programmer and wouldn’t take a background check. Can’t prove it but he’s hacked me several times in the past.” Makes sense to me. You don’t get much notoriety from hacking the AI. When you read the tweets in the article, it definitely sounds like an employee. Some are sorta funny ;             

 
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AMC Fined Over C&R Fees

Excerpts:

The Louisiana Real Estate Appraisal Board (LREAB) has again taken action to ensure that Customary and Reasonable (C&R) Fees are being paid by AMCs and lenders in the state.

On December 8, 2015, after a hearing that lasted over 12 hours and was closely watched and attended by appraisers, AMCs, and lenders alike, the Board ruled against iMortgage Services, LLC and issued a Final Order that included a fine of $10,000 and a six-month license suspension. The suspension was stayed, provided that iMortgage provides a C&R compliance plan to the Board no later than March 21, 2016 

In contrast to Louisiana’s previous C&R enforcement action involving Coester VMS, where there was no admission of guilt by Coester, this is the first judgement against an AMC that leaves no question on the determination of guilt. The Board’s final order establishes that iMortgage failed to comply with Louisiana law and violated the C&R fee requirements set in place by the Board.

Demonstrating the glacial speed at which many state board investigations operate, the initial complaint against iMortgage was filed two years ago in January 2014 after iMortgage sent out an appraisal order for a full 1004MC FHA appraisal with a fee of $200. The investigation was not opened until May 2014, with the hearing taking place in December 2015.

My comment: Almost 300 postings at http://appraisersforum.com/ . Search for AMC Fined For Not Paying C&R Fees. Warning: lots of chit chat, etc, typical for AIforum Just wade through them to get to what you want. Comments also posted after the article. 

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Very interesting workingre article. Read more here:

http://www.workingre.com/AMC-fined-over-cr-fees 

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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 www.mbaa.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.htm  or send an email to info@appraisaltoday.com . Or call 800-839-0227, MTW 8AM to noon, Pacific time.

Mortgage applications increased 8.8 percent from one week earlier 

WASHINGTON, D.C. (January 27, 2015) – Mortgage applications increased 8.8 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending January 22, 2016.  This week’s results include an adjustment to account for the Martin Luther King holiday.

The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased 8.8 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier.  On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased 0.3 percent compared with the previous week.  The Refinance Index increased 11 percent from the previous week.  The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 5 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index increased 0.4 percent compared with the previous week and was 22 percent higher than the same week one year ago.

 

The refinance share of mortgage activity decreased to 59.0 percent of total applications from 59.1 percent the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity increased to 6.9 percent of total applications.

The FHA share of total applications decreased to 12.7 percent from 13.7 percent the week prior. The VA share of total applications increased to 11.1 percent from 10.8 percent the week prior. The USDA share of total applications remained unchanged 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 its lowest level since October 2015, 4.02 percent, from 4.06 percent, with points decreasing to 0.40 from  0.41 (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 3.89 percent from 3.93 percent, with points decreasing to 0.25 from 0.31 (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 3.83 percent from 3.86 percent, with points increasing to 0.38 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 15-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 3.28 percent from 3.29 percent, with points decreasing to 0.37 from 0.39 (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 3.09 percent from 3.20 percent, with points increasing to 0.34 from 0.18 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.  The effective rate decreased from last week.

If you would like to purchase a subscription of MBA’s Weekly Applications Survey, please visit www.mba.org/WeeklyApps, contact mbaresearch@mba.org.

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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Appraiser income and expenses

APPRAISER INCOME AND EXPENSE POLLS

Appraisalport poll, 11-15, www.appraisalport.com
Considering all aspects of completing an appraisal (research, driving, inspection, writeup, etc.) what response do you think best represents your hourly wage?
My comment: Of course, this is gross, before any expenses, auto, insurance, MLS, software, etc. etc. I wonder about those making less than $25 per hour.
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In the past year, have your operating expenses:
My comment: Expenses going up, nothing new. See above poll for hourly income. What is happening with your expenses?

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Very funny appraiser commercial!!

The podcast, The Wits End Broadcast, is very “off the wall”, including “fake” commercials. I suggested including an appraiser commercial. It is hilarious!!

Episode 4, the most recent, has the appraiser commercial – appraiser Candy Cotton, short – only 7 minutes long for the entire episode. Hits a lot of appraiser “hot buttons” ;>

You gotta listen to it!! Plus, check out her other 3 posted podcasts. Please post a comment on iTunes or Stitcher.

Stitcher:

http://app.stitcher.com/browse/feed/75222/details Can link to social media, post a comment, get an app to subscribe on your iphone or android phone, etc.

iTunes:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-wits-end-broadcast/id1048415737?mt=2 The best if you use iTunes. iTunes has labeled the podcasts as “explicit”. Sorry, not much in them except for a brief very humorous reference to group sex in an early episode ;>  My iphone has Gigabytes of podcast from subscriptions, including this one. I gotta take off a week to listen to them!!

Libsyn:

http://thewitsendbroadcast.libsyn.com/ – very easy to use but not many features such as comments, social media links and subscriptions.

About the podcast author: The podcast author and speaker is Lucinda Ryan, who edited my paid Appraisal Today newsletter for a few years when I first started it in 1992, and knows about appraisal issues. She is a former newspaper reporter and editor. Lucinda loves comedy writing and always wanted to do more, including writing for a few Famous Comedians and making lots of money ;> Maybe her podcasts will take off and I can say that I knew her “back in the old days”.

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Part time appraisers – how many and why?

To keep up on what is happening in appraisal businesses, mortgage lending, USPAP, etc. , Plus humor and strange homes, sign up for my FREE weekly appraisal email newsletter, sent since June 1994. Go to Home on the right side of the menu at the top of this page or go to www.appraisaltoday.com
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Part-time appraisers – how many and why?

Statistics from data on appraiser licenses from www.asc.gov, and other sources, do not identify how many are doing appraisals part-time or not at all.

Why does it seem like there is an appraiser shortage in some areas? Of course, it is probably a shortage of appraisers willing to work for low fees. But, this also spills over into non-AMC work as few appraisers are available as they are cranking out AMC appraisals and won’t accept non-AMC work.

I keep speaking with more and more appraisers who are no longer working long hours. There is almost unlimited demand from AMCs, but most of them do not work for AMCs. Or, work for a few AMCs that pay well and give them occasional work. Or, refuse to work for lower fees, so don’t get much AMC work.

Why do appraisers work part-time?

– The median appraiser age is getting higher. Older appraisers (and non-appraisers) are no longer willing to work 60-80 hours per week. They often don’t need as much money as before. Children who graduated from college, collecting social security, home mortgage paid off, or have a low rate on the mortgage, spouse retired, etc. I suspect that this is the primary reason.

– Fee appraisers are self-employed. Many baby boomers that are employed want to work part-time but their employers won’t allow it. One of my brothers started working in the printing business when he was 18. For the past 30 years, he has been doing on-site printer repairs for national companies. He is 67 and would love to cut back to part-time as he does not want to do a lot of driving, which his job requires. When he retires this year, there is no one to replace him. There are no new people coming into printer repairs, which requires expertise in computer software and printer hardware, and many years of experience. His employer says “no” to part-time work.

– Self-employed appraisers, as we get older, can gradually cut back on how much time we spend on appraising. That is one of the best features of having an appraisal business. Also, if we start another business or get another job, we can often continue part-time appraising.

– Not working but keeping a license as a backup. Hard to get a license back. Sometimes do an occasional appraisal. I always recommend keeping your appraisal license as long as you can. You never know when you will need extra income.

– Don’t work for AMCs and don’t get a lot of work from non-AMC clients.

I just look in the mirror. I limit the amount of work I accept. I don’t do any lender work and turn down non-lender work every week. I am 72, downsized my home, no children to support, collect Social Security of $3,000 per month since I turned 70. I worked very long hours appraising for 25 years, but 5 years ago I started cutting back on the hours I spend appraising. (I typically worked about 60 hours per week.) I get also income from my paid newsletter and ads for this free email newsletter. Most importantly, I need more time for my experimental music and videos, another big motivator ;>

I do appraisals and work on my appraisal business for about 15 hours per week. My sfr fees are at, or slightly above, non-AMC C&R fees. I have little driving time as I have been working only in my small city for the past two years – 10 minutes to go from one end to the other. I have an assistant that proofreads, invoices, etc. My typical time to writeup an sfr is about 2 hours. The total time is about 4 hours plus 1 hour for my assistant. There are few tract homes here.

What does this mean for you?

If you stay in the appraisal profession, even part-time, you will have lots of work in the future. Baby Boomers are leaving the workplace, or cutting way back, in large numbers for all types of work.

How many appraisals per week and how much time to complete an appraisal report?(Opens in a new browser tab)

 

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Why are appraiser phone numbers and email addresses so hard to find online?

I set up my web site at www.appraisaltoday.com in 1998. Every page has my name, postal address, phone number, and email address. If anyone wants to contact me to give me an appraisal assignment, or for any other reason, they can find me. I get a lot of work from my web site.

When working on an article for my newsletters, I often need to contact appraisers. Also, I give out a lot of referrals, as I am very busy and turn down a lot of appraisals. For more information on my appraisal newsletters, click the banner ad below.

My assistant spends a lot of time trying to contact appraisers for my newsletters. When she googles a name, such as Janet Johnson appraiser new mexico, sometimes nothing comes up. If they are on an old directory web site, the postal address is available. Asc.gov only has postal addresses. Some state regulators have phone numbers. Some appraisal association member data comes up, such as the Appraisal Institute.

Email addresses are hopeless. They are very seldom available anywhere.

Often the appraiser has no web site, even a simple one page with name, address, resume, and contact info. If there is a contact link, you must fill out a form to contact the person.

I guess they just want to work for AMCs that contact them. Not interested in any other clients, I guess.

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Communicating with other appraisers – why is it a problem?

Communicating with other appraisers – O’Rourke Pontificates on Dustin Harris, the Appraiser Coach’s Podcast

Dustin and I discussed the big issue that many appraisers don’t know other appraisers personally (face to face or over the phone). Dustin talked about the times he has tried to establish relationships with other local appraisers. One was very successful and the other did not work very well. But, both resulted in one personal relationship each. I have written about this topic before and discussed my personal experience plus the “big picture”.

Online communication is fine, but not very good for local issues. Plus, it is hard to establish relationships.

To listen to it, go to http://theappraisercoach.libsyn.com/ . All the podcasts are there. This one is #051, Communication; a key to running a successful appraisal business. Check out the other podcasts. I subscribe to the podcast on itunes and listen to it in my car.

I was inspired to do a 7-page article on the topic for the October issue of Appraisal Today, sent out Oct.1. I sent out a request for info on small, unaffiliated groups in last week’s newsletter. To subscribe to the paid Appraisal Today, click on the banner ad below.

Many thanks to the 13 appraisals groups I profiled! They replied to a questionnaire I sent and I contacted some over the phone. Lots of good tips for appraisers thinking about starting a group and those who currently have an active group. Very interesting!!

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