“You can’t make this up,” New York appraiser Jonathan Miller riffed in his entertaining blog, Matrix, back in June.

Miller was recounting the frustration of a real estate salesperson who was trying to refinance her own New York apartment with her current lender. According to Miller’s telling, the out-of-town appraiser walked into the apartment, threw his hands in the air, and asked “How am I supposed to appraise this thing?”

That story sums up the feeling of many in the real estate industry toward the new Home Valuation Code of Conduct, a set of rules created to prevent those who stand to profit from a real estate transaction from putting undue pressure on the appraiser.

The rules, which went into effect May 1 for all conventional, single-family loans destined for sale to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, prohibit mortgage brokers and real estate brokers from ordering appraisals and require that lenders erect a firewall between loan production staff and the appraiser. Sounds reasonable. After all, the appraiser is there to assure that the lender’s funding decision is sound, right?

Since the rules took effect, however, they’ve set off a firestorm of protest around the country…”

To read more of this great article click here.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 27th, 2009 at 9:18 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.