News By Edition

Valuation Review reached out to Freddie Mac Single-Family Chief Appraiser Scott Reuter, who shared some facts about the government-sponsored enterprises’ (GSE) ACE+ PDR (automated collateral evaluation plus property data report) offering.

Reuter answered several FAQs about loan eligibility as it relates to Freddie Mac’s guidelines.

Read on for the full conversation.

Recently, Valuation Review told its readers about the new assignment of appraiser Tony Pistilli, who now serves as general manager of valuations for Restb.ai.

We caught up with Pistilli, who shared more information about his new assignment and his thoughts about the current status of the appraisal profession.

Read on for the full conversation with this industry veteran.

Dustin Harris, “The Appraiser Coach,” highlights two key mindsets of business for the month of June.

Harris speaks to appraisers from his blogs “Who Are You Surrounding Yourself With?” and “Do What You Love and Love What You Do.”

Read on for more tips from the "coach."

On May 18, the Appraisal Institute (AI) announced the Appraiser Qualifications Board has provided approval of AI’s Practical Applications of Real Estate Appraisal (PAREA) program for the licensed residential path. The Appraisal Foundation’s Board of Trustees awarded the Pathway to Success Grant to the Appraisal Institute to assist with the development of the PAREA program.

Property appraisers in Idaho County, Idaho, are facing increasing risks from people who are noncooperative and will not allow appraisers on their property.

The Idaho County Assessor’s office reported that staff has faced “potentially dangerous situations” from landowners.

Read on to learn more.

Peter Christensen, owner of Christensen Law-Valuation Legal, shared more legal insight with Valuation Review about what appraisers should know.

Christensen outlined specifics dealing with the statute of limitations for a lawsuit against an appraiser.

Read on to find out what the legal expert had to say.

A North Carolina land appraiser recently pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the United States as part of a syndicated conservation easement tax shelter scheme.

This involved inflating charitable contribution deductions based on a fraudulent appraisal value of a conservation easement on land that claimed more than $1.3 billion in fraudulent tax deductions.

Read on for more details.

ATTOM released its annual analysis of the best days of the year to sell a home, which shows the months of May, June and April offering seller premiums of 10 percent or more above market value – with the top 16 best days to sell in the month of May alone.

One-quarter of homes for sale in Austin, Texas, (25.8 percent) have lower estimated monthly housing payments than they would have if they had been for sale a year ago, according to a new report from Redfin.

A former U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development official was sentenced for falsifying financial disclosure forms, according to a release from the United States Department of Justice.

Freddie Mac recently released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey showing the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 6.35 percent. A year ago, at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 5.30 percent.

On April 25, officials with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Federal Trade Commission issued a joint statement about enforcement efforts to protect the public from bias in automated systems and artificial intelligence.

They said America’s commitment to the core principles of fairness, equality, and justice is deeply embedded in the federal laws that the agencies enforce to protect civil rights, fair competition, consumer protection, and equal opportunity.

Read on to learn more.

Recently, Valuation Review brought to the attention of its readers the Reggora launch of its appraisal fulfillment solution, The Appraisal Marketplace.

We sat down with Reggora co-founder and CEO Brian Zitin, who shared more details about this solution.

Read on for the full conversation.

Lamar Ellis of Drone Education Services, one of the leading authorities on drone technology, reached out to Valuation Review to share thoughts from his article, “The New Real Estate.”

Ellis said aerial technology is about to change the landscape of the real estate market.

Read on for the full story.

Valuation Review concludes its conversation with the regional owner of EXIT Mid-Atlantic who works with and supports all of the EXIT real estate franchises in the Mid-Atlantic territory that includes the states of Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia. 

Jonathan Rundlett shares more company “secrets to success.”

Read on for the conclusion of this story.

With the median home sales price having skyrocketed from $313,000 in Q1 2019 to $436,800 in Q1 2023, the personal-finance website WalletHub recently released its report on 2023’s “Most Affordable Cities for Home Buyers.” A comparison of 300 US. cities across 10 metrics were used for the survey.

Foundation Mortgage Corp. recently announced the OptifiNow TPO CRM platform has helped it rapidly grow its wholesale mortgage division within two months of launching its TPO channel. In a press release, Foundation Mortgage CEO Marc Halpern commented on this growth opportunity.