News By Edition

A new Zillow survey examining the housing preferences of and influences on millennials and Gen Zers finds about three in five plan to use money saved during the pandemic to put toward a down payment on a home.

The survey showed even in an unprecedented global pandemic, homeownership still appears to be a priority and aspiration for many young adults.

Read on for more from the survey.

Earlier, Valuation Review spoke with Texas residential appraiser William Trombly, who shared comments he wrote in a specific article dealing with racial bias and discrimination in appraising.

Recently, Trombly contacted us to offer more of his insight on this topic, and as a follow-up to our original story.

Read on to find out more.

The Appraisal Subcommittee (ASC) has awarded the Council on Licensure, Enforcement and Regulation, a 41-year-old nonprofit that promotes regulatory excellence, a three-year, $1 million grant.  

ASC Executive Director James Park details the funding.

Read on for more information.

Yes Lender recently acquired Edge Funder, Inc., a fintech start-up that is transforming entrepreneur’s access to working capital through its direct-to-merchant funding portal. Powered by artificial intelligence and proprietary software, the portal presents multiple funding options to merchants within 60 seconds. 

CoreLogic recently announced a definitive merger agreement to acquire all outstanding shares of ClosingCorp.

The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2021 subject to regulatory approvals, and other customary closing conditions, the company announced in a release.

Read on for more details.

Bowery Valuation announced $35 million in Series B funding led by the Growth Equity business within Goldman Sachs Asset Management (Goldman Sachs) with participation from Capital One Ventures and existing investors including Builders VC, Fika Ventures, Navitas Capital, Camber Creek, Nine Four Ventures, Greenspring Associates, and Alpaca VC.

This investment brings Bowery’s total funding to $66 million following the $20 million in Series A venture funding it received in 2019.

Read on to learn more.

Cherre recently announced that Valcre, an appraisal platform for the commercial real estate industry, is using its GraphQL API to enrich the property and building-level data within its SaaS appraisal platform. The streamlining of manual tasks from collecting property data to generating reports now can be accomplished.

The Land Trust Alliance, a national land conservation organization working to save the places people need and love by strengthening land conservation across America, welcomed some important legislation.

The reintroduction in Congress of the Charitable Conservation Easement Program Integrity Act was brought forward.

Read on to learn more.

LoanLogics, a digital mortgage solutions provider, announced that an affiliate of Sun Capital Partners, Inc., a leading private investment firm focused on defensible businesses in growing markets, completed an acquisition of the company.

Terms of the private transaction were not disclosed.

Read on to learn more.

Greystone announced Karen Ford has joined as a vice president on the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) lending team. Based in Mississippi, Ford will serve with Lisa Anderson, managing director for FHA lending.

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) announced more measures to help homeowners struggling financially due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In line with other federal agencies, FHA has automatically extended its single-family foreclosure and eviction moratorium another month for all FHA-insured single-family mortgages, except vacant or abandoned properties, through July 31, 2021.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) released its first-quarter 2021 Foreclosure Prevention and Refinance Report. The FHFA report showed that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac completed 224,646 foreclosure prevention actions in the first quarter.

The Mortgage Bankers Association endorsed the Black Homeownership Collaborative’s plan to close the Black homeownership gap by 2030. The seven-point plan was announced at a BHC event in Cleveland.

The House recently began consideration of a Credit Union National Association (CUNA)-supported repeal of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s “true lender” proposal. Additionally, the House Financial Services Committee marked up the CUNA-supported Central Liquidity Facility Enhancement Act (H.R. 3958).

Veros Real Estate Solutions released its Q2 2021 VeroFORECASTSM data that anticipates home prices will continue to appreciate during the next 12 months.

This reflects the 100 most-populated markets at a rate consistent with its previous update one quarter ago.

Read on to learn more.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency conducted a session on closing gaps to sustainable homeownership, which has the support of the Credit Union National Association. Those attending the session were told several steps can be taken to address the racial wealth gap and the racial homeownership gap.

UniversalCIS, a market-leading, technology-enabled provider of credit data and related origination solutions in the mortgage industry, acquired the Lending Solutions and Appraisal Management Divisions of Data Facts, a national and international consumer reporting company. The acquisition will enhance UniversalCIS’ customer-centric origination solutions platform while expanding its foothold in new geographic regions.

ICE Mortgage Technology said it will deploy an eVault solution for secure storage of digital mortgages and notes, based upon technology acquired from DocMagic, Inc. Read on to learn more.

Opteon, an international provider of valuation and advisory services, has acquired The William Fall Group and its related brands, Valuation Partners and Summit Valuation Solutions.

The company said the acquisition is a strategic move to fortify its U.S. entity, Apex Appraisal Services.

Read on for more information.

Sellers are returning to the housing market as the number of homes newly listed for sale surpassed 2019 levels for the first time since the start of the year, according to a new report from Redfin. 

Despite a long-awaited increase in the supply of homes for sale, homebuying demand continued to slip, leaving the market feeling a few degrees cooler.

Read o n for more from Redfin.

The CoreLogic Loan Performance Insights report updates its analysis through April 2021, which showed 4.7 percent of mortgages were delinquent by at least 30 days or more including those in foreclosure.

This represents a 1.4-percent decrease in the overall delinquency rate compared with April 2020.

Read on to learn more from the report.

Many states are utilizing Accessory Dwelling Units as solutions to affordable housing.  Changes in state and local zoning regulations are taking place around the country to address affordable housing and looming shortages in more densely populated areas.

Hudson Realty Capital, a commercial real estate middle-market capital provider, has expanded its suite of debt and financing solutions to include Federal Housing Administration loans for commercial properties. The company’s official launch of the FHA division comes on the heels of its acquisition of Greater Southern Realty Capital in late 2020.

Fannie Mae updated its lender letters that addressed borrower assistance in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Its letters to its single-family servicers on the flex modification for COVID-19 impacted borrowers and the impact of COVID-19 on servicing contained policy changes that must be implemented no later than Aug. 31, 2021.

Predictions the pandemic will have a long-lasting impact on office space has yet come to pass, according to national valuation and commercial real estate firm BBG.

In fact, one recent industry report found office-space demand is undergoing a strong recovery from this market sector’s plunge a year ago.

Read on for comments from the BBG CEO.

For the first time in the history of the American Society of Appraisers, the organization has an international president from outside the United States.

The newly elected official began his one-year term July 1.

Read on for more.

CoreLogic’s latest Home Price Index (HPI) and HPI Forecast for May 2021 found home prices increased 15.4 percent year-over-year.   

Month-over-month, home prices increased 2.3 percent compared with April 2020.

Read on for more.

Fannie Mae recently sent out updates notifying appraisers of specific changes to several categories. The changes included asset documentation requirements for refinance transactions and age of appraisals.

Walker & Dunlop, Inc. has acquired TapCap, a technology firm with proprietary web-based software that provides real-time, online quotes for commercial real estate debt. The platform also helps streamline the loan application and origination process.  

Freddie Mac released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey. The results showed the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 2.90 percent.

Buckingham Advisors, an Ohio-based RIA (Registered Investment Advisor) providing financial, tax, investment, and business services to consumers, reached out to Valuation Review to discuss where markets and businesses stand following the 2020 pandemic.

Chief Financial Officer Jeff Groezinger shares his thoughts.

Read on for more.

Valuation Review reached out to Senior Vice President John Feeney of The Boulder Group for his thoughts on cap rates in the single tenant lease sector.

Feeney, in his article “The Net Lease Market Report,” pointed out many trends and statistics within the market reflecting what is happening in net lease retail and industrial assets.

Read on for more from the executive.

Reggora, an appraisal software company, has added another individual to its leadership team. The new hire, instrumental in the breakout success of Snapdocs, has taken the role of vice president of marketing.