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News By Edition
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Valuation Review Edition
March 26, 2012
In the March 26, 2012, edition of Valuation Review, generating interest in the appraisal industry is one thing, getting a young gun through the training process is an entirely different story. In part 2 of "The aging appraiser" Valuation Review investigates the pros and cons of the appraiser training structure and how it impacts current appraisers. Also in this edition, we ask if AMCs are violating RESPA, look into the status of separate fees on the GFE forms and find out why lenders are favoring short sales over REOs. All that and more in this edition of Valuation Review.
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Summit Early Bird pricing ends this week
Posted Date: Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Excitement is growing for the 2012 National Settlement Services and Compliance Summit, and October Research is pleased to announce that Early Bird prices remain open this week for all those registering for the Summit. But title and settlement services professionals wishing to benefit from this special Summit rate must do so by March 31.
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Editor’s note: With a little help from my friends
Posted Date: Monday, March 26, 2012
Everybody needs somebody sometime. It's a lonely and difficult life when you don't have anyone you can depend on. For an independent appraiser, it can sometimes seem like they're fighting an uphill battle alone. There is never a shortage of seemingly insurmountable issues facing the appraisal industry. Sometimes, the smaller problem is the bigger issue. For the appraiser working out of his or her home — maybe it's finding work or improving appraisal services. Everyone has a problem Valuation Review
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Law and Order: Special Valuation Unit
Posted Date: Friday, March 23, 2012
In the criminal justice system, the most heinous of real estate crimes are prosecuted to the furthest extent of the law. Legal professionals rely on the expertise of the appraisal industry’s top valuation minds. They are a unique brand of appraiser that crave justice through extreme valuation accuracy and review. These are their stories.
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Housing affordability index hits record high
Posted Date: Thursday, March 15, 2012
The Housing Affordability Index rose to a record high 206.1 in January, based on the relationship between median home price, median family income and average mortgage interest rate. The higher the index, the greater the household purchasing power.
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HUD goes green, awards $23 million for energy-saving approaches
Posted Date: Wednesday, March 14, 2012
All across the country, owners of aging apartment complexes are looking for ways to reduce their energy consumption and save money. In order to test new and innovative ways to cut energy bills and to finance energy efficiency upgrades in existing multi-family residential properties, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development awarded nearly $23 million to a dozen organizations on the cutting edge of bringing energy-saving solutions to the housing market.
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LPS supports deployed service members and families in need
Posted Date: Wednesday, March 14, 2012
As part of its Commitment to Caring program, Lender Processing Services Inc. announced it has donated $50,000 to benefit Operation Homefront and Spare Key, nonprofit organizations dedicated to providing financial relief to families of deployed service members and families of critically ill or injured children, respectively.
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Ellie Mae adds a new senior vice president
Posted Date: Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Ellie Mae announced that Cathleen Schreiner Gates joined the company as its senior vice president of sales and client services. Gates is responsible for all client-facing activities, including new client acquisition, implementation, training, client services, on-going account management and client care.
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Score one for the bad guys in fight against fraud
Posted Date: Monday, March 12, 2012
A report from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network showed that mortgage loan fraud suspicious activity report (MLF SAR) filings were up 20 percent year over year in the third quarter of 2011.
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Forsythe Appraisals names new director of operations
Posted Date: Monday, March 12, 2012
Forsythe Appraisals announced the appointment of a new director of operations, who has more than two decades of industry experience, including 20 years growing and managing 35 branches at First American Title, one of the nation’s largest title insurance and settlement service providers.
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Editor's Note: Time to take the lead
Posted Date: Monday, March 12, 2012
Growing old is a strange experience. It's something you don't notice or truly understand until one day you begin to feel the age-old "time is short," carpe diem clichés. It's a profound moment — we only get one shot at this and what we do today will impact tomorrow. For appraisers, tomorrow's forecast is cloudy at best. Put aside the battle for customary and reasonable fees, the AMC animosity, etc. for a moment. The greatest problem appraisers face is the lack of interest in the industry from a younger g
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Platinum Data Solutions appoints new CEO
Posted Date: Thursday, March 08, 2012
PLATINUMdata Solutions appointed industry veteran Phil Huff as its new chief executive officer. He succeeds the company’s founder, Rocky Donathan, who will maintain an active role in the company. Huff, who was the co-founder and chief executive officer of secure document technology provider eLynx, was selected to spearhead the company’s strategic growth plan.
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Double duty: Mercury Network doubles appraisal transaction volume
Posted Date: Wednesday, March 07, 2012
a la mode announced that use of its Mercury Network cloud-based appraisal vendor management platform has doubled appraisal transaction volume from 10,000 appraisal transactions a day to more than 20,000 a day in just 16 months.
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Mortech opens lines of communication between lenders and borrowers
Posted Date: Wednesday, March 07, 2012
Mortech Inc., a mortgage technology software company specializing in solutions for mortgage bankers and secondary market teams, released a new technology allowing loan officers the ability to exchange real-time mortgage application data directly with their borrowers. The secure consumer-facing portal, called Connect, is available completely free to users of Mortech’s MarksmanLMP platform.
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Bradford Technologies redesigns CompCruncher
Posted Date: Wednesday, March 07, 2012
Bradford Technologies redesigned CompCruncher, its valuation technology used by appraisers to prepare statistically supported valuation reports. One of the major changes is that the system now provides regression-based analysis for appraisals approved by the government sponsored enterprises (GSE). CompCruncher 2.0 is the industry’s first and only appraisal technology to enable regression analysis for the most commonly used residential appraisal forms.
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Home Price Index shows U.S. home prices accelerated their decline
Posted Date: Wednesday, March 07, 2012
Lender Processing Services Inc.’s Applied Analytics division updated its home price index with residential sales concluded during December 2011. Beginning next month (transactions of January 2012), the report will be based on an updated view of market structure.
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U.S. home prices stable but sliding
Posted Date: Tuesday, March 06, 2012
Although national home prices went down 1.9 percent year-over-year, the loss represented the lowest level of decline in over 10 months.
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Are AMCs violating RESPA?
Posted Date: Tuesday, March 06, 2012
One national association says, “Yes.” Read on to find out the basis for the group’s claims and why it says AMCs are costing consumers billions.
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Lenders start to favor short sales over REO
Posted Date: Monday, March 05, 2012
One-fourth of the market in the final four months of 2011 was dominated by sales of properties in some stage of foreclosure. This is surprising to those in the industry only because it wasn’t higher.
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Separating the fee symptoms from the cause: What do separate fees on forms really say?
Posted Date: Wednesday, February 29, 2012
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is testing prototype Good Faith Estimate and Settlement Forms – one version calls out and separates the fees paid to the appraiser and appraisal management company and the other version does not. The American Society of Appraisers and the National Association of Independent Fee Appraisers voiced their support of the fee separation on the forms, but as with many appraisal issues, there are two sides to each story...
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Gotta keep ‘em separated: Calling out AMC fees on forms
Posted Date: Monday, February 27, 2012
In the battle for a “customary and reasonable” appraisal fee, the transparency of who is paid what amount is a huge step in the right direction. So, it’s good for appraisers that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is testing prototype Good Faith Estimate and Settlement Forms that separate the fields of what an appraisal management company is paid and what an appraiser paid. Of course, the CFPB is also testing forms that don’t separate the appraisal payments.
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