Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Monday, November 28, 2011, 4:30 PM
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Reading to keep you from thinking about how much weight you put on over Thanksgiving:
- Is American dream fragile? History says it’s strong. [CSM]
- Lost in Krappetown [City Journal]
- Worst. Congress. Ever. [Foreign Policy]
- Mortgage Principal Can Be Cut Without Moral Hazard [BankThink]
- Turn On the Server. It’s Cold Inside. [NY Times]
- Penzance lands Watergate offices for $76 million [WaPo]
- Is home ownership really a smart investment? [Toronto Star/Moneyville]
- Buzzonomics: Why a housing bubble won’t surface until at least 2013 (Canada) [Buzz Home]
- Utah among highest home-ownership rates in the country [Deseret News]
Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Tuesday, July 5, 2011, 12:01 AM
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actual AMC (car) factory
AMC Factory For a year and a half, our firm tangled with the bureaucracy of Landsafe, the poster child for the appraisal management company (AMC) industry. While not all AMC’s are bad, their relationship to the mortgage process is fundamentally flawed. The estimation of market value of mortgage collateral to enable lenders to make informed decisions has been commoditized to the point where most mortgage appraisals are generally not worth the paper they are written on. This series is from an appraiser’s perspective, about a profession left to die by the side of the road.
Errant Email Prompts Appraisers to Say What They Really Think
For two months Landsafe begged appraisers (why some of my appraisers are on the list will be explored in a future post in this series – it’s a doozy): The revamped a multi-page legal agreement without disclosing what prompted the change. Well, The Appraisal Institute warned us about signing the agreement but basically they are shifting the risk to appraisers when they shouldn’t be (more on this in coming posts).
Here’s the intro of the Landsafe request. I should be clear that they never set a deadline for signing until later on, called us and emailed us repeated to sign it.
You received an announcement from LandSafe Appraisal Services concerning
the Appraisal Services Agreement. This must be submitted electronically
to LandSafe in order to remain active in our system.
To date, we have not received a completed ASA agreement from you. If we
do not receive one from you then this could lead to an interruption in
the work you receive from LandSafe.
Of course, we weren’t receiving regular work from them so it fell on deaf ears.
In an email error, they sent this request to hundreds of appraisers but forgot to BCC.
Here’s a sampling from the appraisers who clicked “reply all”.
More after the jump…
Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Tuesday, June 28, 2011, 12:01 AM
12 Comments
actual AMC (car) factory
AMC Factory For a year and a half, our firm tangled with the bureaucracy of Landsafe, the poster child for the appraisal management company (AMC) industry. While not all AMC’s are bad, their relationship to the mortgage process is fundamentally flawed. The estimation of market value of mortgage collateral to enable lenders to make informed decisions has been commoditized to the point where most mortgage appraisals are generally not worth the paper they are written on. This series is from an appraiser’s perspective, about a profession left to die by the side of the road.
The Good Appraiser AMC Bait And Switch Technique
I believe that there are generally 1-3 good appraisal firms in most markets. A “best and all the rest” list. (Blowhard hyperbole warning: I consider our firm to be one of the “good” firms in our market.)
The proliferation of AMCs used by lenders has exploded since HVCC came to be in May 2009.
AMC’s continue to fight their poor reputation for quality – they generally only require state licensing, inconsistent reviews of sample reports, agreement to fees that are half market rate, 24-48 hour turn times irregardless regardless of valuation difficulties, etc. In order to combat this AMCs use the following marketing technique:
Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Tuesday, June 21, 2011, 3:38 PM
2 Comments
actual AMC (car) factory
AMC Factory For a year and a half, our firm tangled with the bureaucracy of Landsafe, the poster child for the appraisal management company (AMC) industry. While not all AMC’s are bad, their relationship to the mortgage process is fundamentally flawed. The estimation of market value of mortgage collateral to enable lenders to make informed decisions has been commoditized to the point where most mortgage appraisals are generally not worth the paper they are written on. This series is from an appraiser’s perspective, about a profession left to die by the side of the road.
A little background on Countrywide, creator of Landsafe: About a year and a half ago, we were approached a final time to provide appraisal services for Landsafe, one of the largest AMC’s in the US. Landsafe was founded in 1996 by Countrywide, one of the US largest mortgage lenders accounting for 20% of all lending at their peak. By forming an AMC, Landsafe was better able to control the appraisal process to handle more volume including selling mortgage paper to Wall Street for packaging into a number of exotic financial mortgage instruments.
Countrywide ran into financial trouble in 2007 along with other lenders like American Home Mortgage as the housing market began to collapse.
Think ‘Friends of Angelo’ VIP program, Subprime Lending, Bailouts, Hurricane Katrina, AG Lawsuits.” Among appraisers, Landsafe developed the same reputation over time that Countrywide developed and it wasn’t favorable – they were seen as a factory – only interested in cranking out reports at high volume. Like other financial institutions, the quality function had far less political clout than the sales function which is the basis for Landsafe’s poor reputation in the appraisal industry. I had at least a have dozen meetings with Landsafe senior executives and appraisers in my office to ask us to join them because the appraisal quality they oversaw was so poor. Nothing ever happened.
By 2008 when Countrywide was purchased by Bank of America, it’s name was so toxic it was changed to Bank of America Home Loans. I remember giving a speech at an awards luncheon and the event sponsor was a Bank of America Home Loans rep. When he announced they were no longer known as Countrywide, the audience of real estate agents broke out in spontaneous applause. It was an amazing moment. It remains a mystery why the Landsafe name wasn’t changed at the same time.
The Pledge
One other point and then I’ll get to my story:
In September 2007, after months of negative publicity and the announcement of a reduction of 20% of its workforce, Countrywide launched a public relations campaign aimed at demoralized employees. Employees were expected to sign a pledge to “demonstrate their commitment to our efforts” and “to tell the Countrywide story to all”. Those who signed the pledge received a green rubber Protect Our House wristband.
Landsafe has continued the tradition, requiring their appraisers to sign various draconian documents to pledge their allegiance. Of course the appraiser has the option not to do business with them, but they represent a huge percentage of mortgage appraisal volume. A new generation of appraiser has quickly replaced the more experienced appraiser. Thus the industry is now dominated by an army of form fillers.
Ok, finally – here is this week’s post:
More after the jump…
Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Monday, March 14, 2011, 7:30 AM
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By using iClickers in our MillerQA seminars, we are able to poll our audiences for instant anonymous feedback on housing market sentiment at that specific moment.
[click to find out more]
Our next public event is:
Monday, April 4, 2011 from 4:00-7:15 pm
Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue (at 38th Street), New York, NY
The nitty gritty:
Understanding Today’s Housing Market, 1Q11 [MillerQA Housing Market Seminars]
Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Friday, March 11, 2011, 7:30 AM
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By using iClickers in our MillerQA seminars, we are able to poll our audiences for instant anonymous feedback on housing market sentiment at that specific moment.
[click to find out more]
Our next public event is:
Monday, April 4, 2011 from 4:00-7:15 pm
Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue (at 38th Street), New York, NY
The nitty gritty:
Understanding Today’s Housing Market, 1Q11 [MillerQA Housing Market Seminars]
Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Tuesday, March 8, 2011, 7:30 AM
Comments Off
By using iClickers in our MillerQA seminars, we are able to poll our audiences for instant anonymous feedback on housing market sentiment at that specific moment.
[click to find out more]
Our next public event is:
Monday, April 4, 2011 from 4:00-7:15 pm
Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue (at 38th Street), New York, NY
The nitty gritty:
Understanding Today’s Housing Market, 1Q11 [MillerQA Housing Market Seminars]
Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Sunday, March 6, 2011, 7:30 AM
Comments Off
By using iClickers in our MillerQA seminars, we are able to poll our audiences for instant anonymous feedback on housing market sentiment at that specific moment.
[click to find out more]
Our next public event is:
Monday, April 4, 2011 from 4:00-7:15 pm
Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue (at 38th Street), New York, NY
The nitty gritty:
Understanding Today’s Housing Market, 1Q11 [MillerQA Housing Market Seminars]
Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Wednesday, March 2, 2011, 7:30 AM
Comments Off
By using iClickers in our MillerQA seminars, we are able to poll our audiences for instant anonymous feedback on housing market sentiment at that specific moment.
[click to find out more]
Our next public event is:
Monday, April 4, 2011 from 4:00-7:15 pm
Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue (at 38th Street), New York, NY
The nitty gritty:
Understanding Today’s Housing Market, 1Q11 [MillerQA Housing Market Seminars]
Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Friday, February 4, 2011, 11:57 AM
1 Comment
[click to expand]
After the photo taken last week, our appraisers were on the hunt for more literary evidence from the same author. We may have just stumbled onto an earlier work in their writing career.
Editor’s note: I feel like 3 bullet points would be more instructive. Then again, I never took an expository writing class on describing “caged vertical emergencies.”
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