Topic:  Newsletter Articles

Your agent website needs to convey information and impressions visually. Homebuyers and sellers looking for a listing agent can see a static list of properties in the local paper. When they browse the Web, they need to be reeled in by a visual, interactive experience. Your website needs to tell them that you take technology seriously, and that the "face" you put on the Internet reflects you as an agent: professional, high-quality and attractive.   Read more...

Mercury Network servers routed more than 1,565,000 appraisal reports in May, the sixth busiest month ever. Our servers have reliably delivered more than 5,167,000 reports in the last three months, an annual clip of more than 20 million appraisals.   Read more...

Fannie Mae released its proposed new 1004 form last week, as you probably heard from us (or from someone who heard from us). Those of you who have gone over it have tended to not like what you see, though you've identified some positives.   Read more...

Thirty-nine of 220 ranked Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) experienced home price contraction in the first quarter of 2004, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) reported this week.   Read more...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) revised its Mortgagee Handbook 4000.2, Application through Insurance, including some changes to the chapter on Property Appraisal and Valuation. Note that this is not the long-awaited revision of HUD's single family appraisal handbook.   Read more...

Last week, we asked you to share with your fellow appraisers how you're dealing with historically high gas prices. Twice as many of you wrote to say that you're increasing fees and/or adding long trip surcharges, than said you're not modifying your fee.   Read more...

The Association of Appraiser Regulatory Officials (AARO) last week made available on its web site an opinion of the federal court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in the case of Fidelity National Information Solutions, Inc. (FNIS) et al. v. Sinclair. As the link makes the rounds on Internet message boards, e-mail lists and the occasional news report, it is consistently being introduced as a defeat for state-level appraiser regulation and a victory for appraisal alternatives, like Broker Price Opinions (BPOs) and Competitive Market Analyses (CMAs) performed by real estate agents, Automated Valuation Models (AVMs) and other non-appraiser valuations.   Read more...

Last week we passed along (and mildly endorsed) a suggestion we'd received from several readers: that eliminating the Owner's Estimate of Value from appraisal forms would decrease mortgage fraud. This simple suggestion drew a lot of feedback.   Read more...

Another valuation-themed e-mail newsletter, perhaps your second favorite, last week devoted its entire space to a defense of AVMs (automated valuation models) by the Collateral Assessment and Technologies Committee of the Real Estate Information Professionals Association (REIPA). The committee consists of the nation's largest AVM developers, including AVMax, Basis100, Countrywide, DataQuick, Fidelity National Financial, First American RES, Fiserv CSW, Real Info, Inc., TransUnion Settlement Solutions, and Veros Software. As confident as we are that the newsletter will quickly devote equal space to the appraiser's side of the argument, it's important to address some squirrelly contentions and outright falsehoods the AVM lobby presented.   Read more...

Southern California-based origination giant IndyMac Bank last week announced it would acquire all but six and a quarter percent of Financial Freedom Holdings Inc., the nation's largest reverse mortgage lender with $976 million in reverse mortgage loans in 2003.   Read more...