Appraisal Buzz

FEBRUARY 28, 2022

“We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short term and underestimate the effect in the long term.” This is the little-known Law of Amara that describes how we perceive the impact of new technology on our lives. Before we discuss the impact of technology on the future of appraisal data, it’s good to get a historical perspective. Forty years ago, appraisers were storing property data on Property Cards.

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Cleveland Appraisal Blog

NOVEMBER 3, 2022

Most appraisers are experiencing a significant slowdown in mortgage lending work due to rapidly increasing mortgage rates which are slowing down the housing market. I have seen a slowdown in my lending work also. So what can we do? Half my work is non-lending work, and that’s been a blessing. Mortgage lending work is only one type of business where appraisals are needed.

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Sacramento Appraisal Blog

OCTOBER 10, 2022

The housing market has shifted, and today I have some practical advice for buyers and sellers. This is coming from hundreds of conversations every month as well as stats I'm pulling. Some new memes too. Enjoy if you wish.

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Housing Wire

DECEMBER 29, 2022

As we close out 2022, it’s time to reflect on a historic year for the housing market, which was even crazier than the COVID-19 year of 2020. There are similarities and significant differences between the housing recession we’ve seen this year versus 2008, and looking at specific factors in both timeframes gives us an idea of what to expect in 2023.

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Appraisal Buzz

JANUARY 17, 2022

The housing market boomed in 2021 like few could have expected. What is on the horizon in 2022? Home prices are rising to record highs , and many policymakers and industry professionals have begun turning to building to ease shortages. Of course, the construction industry has been facing some pressing challenges, including hitches in global and national supply chains.

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Cleveland Appraisal Blog

JULY 20, 2022

I recently gave a presentation and was asked if appraisal gap clauses impact the way appraisers are developing their opinion of value? In other words, do appraisal gap clauses cause appraisers to be more “conservative”? An appraisal gap clause can be written into a contract. It states that the buyer will still purchase the home at the contract price, even if the appraised value is lower than the contract price by a certain amount.

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George Dell

JUNE 8, 2022

How can we fix the excess of appraisers? Easy — we do what we have always done, each time. 1) We will raise the standards (“cost of entry”). 2) We will make it harder to become an appraiser; 3) Let the lower fees discourage newcomer appraisers. In past issues of the Analogue […]. The post Part 0: How Do We Fix the Excess of Appraisers?

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 16, 2022

Homebuilder confidence continued to drop in November, hitting its lowest level since June 2012, with the exception of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020, according to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) report, released Wednesday. In November, builder sentiment in the market for newly built single-family homes fell five points from October , ending at 33 points — less than half the level it was six months ago.

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Sacramento Appraisal Blog

MARCH 21, 2022

I have a few things on my mind today. Let’s talk about square footage rules changing, crazy gas prices, and recession buzz. 1) NEW SQUARE FOOTAGE STANDARDS FOR APPRAISERS: If you didn’t know, Fannie Mae is adopting some changes with the way appraisers measure square footage (pdf). In short, as of April 1, 2022, appraisers […].

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 17, 2022

The best way to fight inflation is to add more supply, and when I look at the housing completion data for the past two years, it just makes me want to puke. In previous expansions, builders’ housing completion data would move in line with housing starts and permits. However, for the first time in recent modern-day history — due to supply chain issues and other factors — housing completion data has lagged behind housing permits and starts.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 16, 2022

Mortgage demand rose as rates dropped following the October slowdown in inflation growth numbers. However, while purchase mortgage applications increased across all loan types, refinance activity remained depressed. The market composite index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased 2.7% for the week ending November 11, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA).

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Housing Wire

DECEMBER 7, 2022

Since the weaker CPI data was released in November, bond yields and mortgage rates have been heading lower. The question then was: What would lower mortgage rates do to this data? Now, with five weeks of data in front of us, we can say they have stabilized the market. Purchase application data came out on Wednesday and the week-to-week data was down 3%, breaking the streak of four straight weeks of growth.

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Housing Wire

DECEMBER 1, 2022

Over the past few years, we’ve seen an increased demand for smart home technology as consumers continue to embrace a digital lifestyle. “Smart home technology, whether it be keyless entry locks, smart thermostats or leak sensors, these are all things that, five or six years ago, were still pretty new to the marketplace,” said Andre Sanchez, COO of Rently, a smart home and self-guided touring solutions provider.

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Housing Wire

SEPTEMBER 27, 2022

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac , has been granted summary judgment on the last remaining claim by investors in a lawsuit alleging the government overstepped its authority when it adjusted its stock-purchase agreements with the agencies and allowed net worth sweeps. The plaintiffs, Fairholme Funds Inc., et al., are private-sector investors in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which have been in conservatorship under FHFA oversight since the 2008 fin

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Housing Wire

AUGUST 5, 2022

What a crazy day for my economic model! On the same day, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) revealed that we’ve recovered all the jobs lost to COVID-19 and I am raising my sixth recession red flag. When I wrote the America is back recovery model on April 7, 2020, and then retired it on Dec. 9, 2020, I knew one data line would lag the most: jobs!

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 27, 2022

On Thursday, the gross domestic product data for the third quarter showed the U.S. economy grew at a rate of 2.6%, breaking the negative GDP streak we had in the past two quarters. Does this mean the Federal Reserve needs to hike rates even more to get the recession they’re looking for, or is there a case for mortgage rates to go below 6% over the next six months?

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Housing Wire

SEPTEMBER 8, 2022

Bank of America recently announced a loan for lower-income households that doesn’t require homebuyers to come up with a downpayment or closing costs, and doesn’t base the loan on a minimum FICO score. People’s first reaction was to wonder if this was 2008 all over again. Are we really doing those types of loans and promoting homeownership again without understanding the risks?

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Housing Wire

JUNE 30, 2022

Less than a week after laying off hundreds of workers and refusing new mortgage applications, First Guaranty Mortgage Corp. (FGMC) and its affiliate Maverick II Holdings filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection late Wednesday. . “While we have made considerable efforts to address our ongoing financial challenges related to the state of the mortgage market, we ultimately must do what is best for our borrowers and consumers,” Aaron Samples, chief executive officer of FGMC, said in a

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Housing Wire

JUNE 16, 2022

I’m raising my fifth recession red flag today based on the Census Bureau ‘s May housing starts data. Housing starts showed a miss on the estimate but positive revisions. Housing starts came in at 1.549 million and housing permits came in at 1.695 million. Housing completion data did grow to 1.465 million and more of the backlogged homes are finished.

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Housing Wire

JULY 20, 2022

Late this month – July 30 – marks the 14-year anniversary of President George W. Bush, a Republican President, signing into law the HERA legislation , developed under a Democratic-controlled Congress. HERA established a process for conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac , created FHFA as a first-class regulator, and codified GSE mission provisions like the Housing Trust Fund, Duty to Serve , and Housing Goals.

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Housing Wire

JUNE 8, 2022

We are at the point of the economic cycle where I really just get two questions: Are we going into recession and are home prices about to fall? I am going to do my best to try to make sense of what is happening with the housing market right now, since the years 2020-2024 have been a talking point of mine for years and my biggest concern since the fall of 2020 has been prices overheating — not having a deflationary collapse. .

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Housing Wire

DECEMBER 13, 2022

On Tuesday, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data came in cooler than expected , and the bond market loved it, driving mortgage rates lower. Where do we go from here? Headline inflation is still very elevated historically, but the trend can be our friend over the next 12 months. I say this because the most significant component of Core CPI is shelter inflation.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 28, 2022

Economic reports over the Thanksgiving holiday paint a complicated picture of what’s happening, and where we are on recession watch. The big economic surprise was the strength of Black Friday sales, where consumers spent a record $9.12 billion online. Another surprise was the Atlanta Fed’s forecast of 4.3% GDP growth in the fourth quarter, since the Atlanta Fed data was used by many to say that the U.S. went into a recession earlier in the year.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 7, 2022

On Friday the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 263,000 new jobs were added in September. While that growth seems like good news in this economy, it runs directly counter to what the Federal Reserve wants to see. And the even worse news for the Fed was that the unemployment rate fell back to 3.5%. That low unemployment rate has to be driving the Fed nuts.

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Housing Wire

JANUARY 10, 2022

This article is part of our HousingWire 2022 forecast series. After the series wraps, join us on February 8 for the HW+ Virtual 2022 Forecast Event. Bringing together some of the top economists and researchers in housing, the event will provide an in-depth look at the top predictions for this year, along with a roundtable discussion on how these insights apply to your business.

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Housing Wire

MARCH 10, 2022

On Thursday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the same trend that all Americans have seen lately: the inflation rate of growth is rampant and doesn’t show any sign of easing up due to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine. The Consumer Price Index for all Urban Consumers “increased 0.8 percent in February on a seasonally adjusted basis after rising 0.6 percent in January… Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 7.9 percent before seasonal adjustment.” As you can

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 10, 2022

Finally, some good news: the growth rate of inflation is cooling off for now, and with the CPI inflation report being positive, the 10-year yield fell noticeably, and mortgage rates will fall with that! So, the question is, are we reaching the peak of inflation and close to the end of the Fed rate hike cycle? Let’s take a look at today’s data.

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Housing Wire

JULY 13, 2022

Looking at the housing market in the years 2020-2024, one risk i identified early on was that home prices could accelerate more in this period than we saw in the previous expansion if inventory channels broke to all-time lows. I talked about having a 23% price-growth model for the housing market in the years 2020-2024 as a critical marker of balanced growth versus overheating, especially as inventory had been falling for years right into our critical demographic patch.

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Housing Wire

JUNE 21, 2022

The housing nightmare continues. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported that existing home sales for April came in at 5.41 million , down 3.4% from the previous month and 8.6% from last year. But, the savagely unhealthy data line was that home prices are up 14.8%. Now that we are almost in July, we can safely say the premise that once mortgage rates hit 4%, the mass panic selling of American homeowners who need to get out at all costs, driving total inventory up in the millions, has

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Housing Wire

APRIL 20, 2022

A Department of Veterans Affairs lending program for Native American veterans has been severely underutilized, a government watchdog found. According to a report the Government Accountability Office published this week, the VA’s Native American Direct Loan program only resulted in 89 loans originated in the continental U.S. from 2012 to 2021. This represents less than 1% of the estimated potentially eligible population of 70,000 veterans, the watchdog agency said.

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Housing Wire

MARCH 18, 2022

The National Association of Realtors reported that existing home sales for February came in as a miss of estimates at 6.02 million. This level is still within my 2022 forecast sales range between 5.74 million and 6.16 million. Last year I discussed sales levels coming back down to 5.84 million and I am looking for more of the same in 2022, at the 5.74 million level.

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