The money paid for an appraisal is barely adequate for them to do the job, assuming you want them to spend some time on it and think about it. If you have a third party entity taking a significant percentage of the fee just for assigning it out, there’s less chance they can do that.

I think that loan originator pressure was a significant problem. I just don’t see the solution they came up with as being the best solution. And if you are going to go with this solution, the amount of compensation to assign out an appraiser should be limited to $50.

The guy who appraised my home works for one of those big appraisal companies and he seemed okay with the new rules and when I asked about income he said the fees per appraisal were perfectly fine. He had no complaints.

Most of the complaints are coming from one-man appraisal shops who can’t compete with the low cost of the big appraisal firms.

Does this article seem absurd to anyone else besides me?

http://www.cnbc.com/id/31509964

Isn’t it pretty common knowledge that bullsh!t appraisals were routine during the runup? And by BS, I mean that appraisers were working with lenders and would essentially rubberstamp prices?

More than “working with” lenders, appraisers were routinely threatened to “find the value’ or the lender would take their appraisal business elsewhere.

I agree, very funny.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/realestate/2009267386_apushomesales.html

Nationwide home sales may have finally hit bottom, new data shows, but a host of thorny problems are hindering any recovery.

Sales of previously occupied homes rose by 2.4 percent from April to May – the third monthly increase this year – but the results missed analysts’ expectations.

Home sellers are still competing against a growing number of bargain-priced foreclosures, buyers are paying higher mortgage rates and new rules for property appraisers are delaying or scuttling many deals.

“We have just been flooded with e-mails, telephone calls on the appraisal problems,” said Lawrence Yun, the Realtors’ chief economist.

The National Association of Realtors said Tuesday that home sales rose to a seasonally adjusted annual pace of 4.77 million, up from a downwardly revised rate of 4.66 million in April.

About one in three homes sold last month was a foreclosure or distressed sale, dragging down the median price to $173,000 – 16.8 percent below a year ago.

The size of the price drop, however, reflects a crush of first-time buyers and investors snapping up bargain-priced homes. A government home price index also released Tuesday showed home prices were flat between March and April. That index, however, only measures the values of homes with government-backed loans, so it underestimates the weakness at the top end of the market and doesn’t include many foreclosures.

Marlene Rossi had to shaved 26 percent off her original listing price of $719,000 to sell her four-bedroom colonial in Congers, N.Y., on the west side of the Hudson River. She first listed the house in September 2007, thinking it would take only six months to sell. She finally accepted an offer this month for $530,000.

Rossi, 59, and her husband now have to rethink their retirement plans. Rossi is a nanny and her husband works in a golf pro shop and also as an umpire for baseball games.

Instead of being able to buy a condominium without a mortgage, she said, “we will only be able to put a down payment on it and we will still have to work.”

The bursting of the housing bubble helped push the U.S. economy into the worst financial crisis in seven decades. Now the economy is hobbling the recovery of the real estate market. Corporate layoffs are forcing more cash-strapped homeowners to miss their monthly mortgage payments. Unemployment, currently at 9.4 percent, isn’t expected to peak until mid-2010 and foreclosures should crest about six months after.

“We’re in the bottom of the seventh-inning” of the housing crisis, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com.

But there’s still a risk the housing bust could go into extra innings.

Interest rates, for example, have climbed back from their all-time lows this spring. The average rate on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage was 5.38 percent last week, according to Freddie Mac.

Mindful of the negative trends, Patrick Newport, an economist with IHS Global insight, says home sales could fall another 9 percent from last month’s levels. “Things are going to get a little bit worse,” he said.

Nevertheless, there are other signs the market is turning around. The number of unsold homes fell 3.5 percent in May. That means there’s a 9.6 month supply at the current sales pace, compared with 6 months or fewer in a normal market.

The inventory figures, however, don’t reflect the large number of houses being held off the market by owners who are reluctant to sell while prices are falling.

Meanwhile, another complication has emerged in recent months: New rules designed to tackle conflicts of interests in the property appraisal process have caused many transactions to fall apart or be delayed.

Responding to widespread complaints about inflated appraisals during the real estate boom, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo reached a pact last year with mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on a new code of conduct for the industry.

Since the rules took effect May 1, real estate agents and mortgage brokers say a number of appraisals are coming in surprisingly low. And now the National Association of Realtors is pressing regulators to put an 18-month hold on the code, arguing in a letter Monday to regulators that it the code is “hampering the housing market’s recovery.”

Chris Heller, agent-owner of Keller Williams Realty in northern San Diego, estimated that in recent weeks problems with the appraisal process have caused about a third of his transactions to fall apart.

While the new rules are not ideal, appraisers are not to blame for a market where prices are falling rapidly, said Bill Garber, director of governmental relations at the Appraisal Institute. He defended the industry, saying, “The appraisers only report what’s going on in the market.”

I think the 8th inning is going to be a doozy!

I recently refinanced. My appraiser called within a day of the appraisal being ordered, he came out the following week, the appraisal was done within 4 days, the value came in right were we needed it to be. I have absolutely no complaints. Talked with the appraiser, he seemed fine with the new rule changes.

The people who are screaming the loudest regarding the HVACC are the mortgage brokers and the appraisers who are not hooked up with a big firm….and the Realtors whose deals are falling apart because of low appraisals.

This low appraisal phase will pass.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/31509964

Isn’t it pretty common knowledge that bullsh!t appraisals were routine during the runup? And by BS, I mean that appraisers were working with lenders and would essentially rubberstamp prices?

[Edit: I changed the link to go to the post instead of directly to the image.]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/boeingaerospace/2009372399_web787delay23.html

The term is a compelling reason to short sale a property. Loss of income may work, preditory lending if the person had no income to begin with, or job loss, divorce, death, an accident, laid off, are all things a bank will look at. Not wanting to make your payments on a depreciating asset is not a compelling reason.

RE: Kary L. Krismer @ 14 –

Then we have the way banks have responded to credit card debt. The bank wants some one who is tapped out to make payments on 19% and 24% up to 30% interest. When you go to Consumer Credit Counseling banks will do you the favor of lowering your interest to between 8% to 15% and want the principle balance paid off within five years.

Between these two ways the banks want to get paid, and I personally don’t think they should be, we all have a problem with debt. We are all going to be paying for banks bad credit decisions. Banks gave credit to every one and now want us all to pay. We are losing jobs, wages, and tax dollars to pay banks for giving money away and driving up the price of everything.
.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31325093/ns/business-personal_finance/

If you through in someone who also owned a home, it would be a piece on people who are underwater on their mortgage(s).

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2009-06-22-homebuyer-credit-may-be-extended_N.htm

Realtors need to tell homeowners this UP FRONT before they take the listing.

Some homeowners will walk away and let the bank foreclose (and take the credit score hit) rather than pay back the short fall. Other homeowners (with assets!) for various reasons choose to do the short sale and pay back the deficiency.

Beware owners who own other real estate assets including land. Moving assets around or to other relatives prior to a short sale may not insulate you after all. Lenders just may require you to shift the obligation owed to other property.

Barak Obama spoke those words and the Arab world stood on their feet to cheer.

There was open debate before the election in Iran and protests after. In my opinion just knowing that there was a chance for world dialog is what brought these people to the streets.

This has gone way beyond the presidential election to the heart of the hard line cleric control of the country. No matter what happens from this point forward, Iran will be changed.

Let me also say that the United States bombed women and children when it attacked Iraq. For my money we are getting far better results with this diplomacy.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2009/06/22/us_will_continue_hot_dog_diplomacy_with_iran.html

“Please can we be friends? Yes we can!”

Bob, it’s a little hard to tell exactly what information you have and what you’re looking to find from your post. First let me give you a little disclaimer. The information below should not be relied upon and in the event that you need legal advice you should consult an attorney. The information below is general information not intended as specific advice to any particular question or issue and should not be relied upon as legal advice for any specific purpose.

Assuming you know of a particular parcel that has a right to water from a well on another parcel there may or may not be an recorded well agreement, although a well agreement should have been done. If a well agreement was done it may be titled as or termed as any number of things including an easement. If it was done as an easement, it may refer to the benefited parcel as the dominant estate. If you are looking for documents concerning the well it would probably be best to have your title search cover the parcel on which the well is located. The property on which the well is located and any properties over which water lines run to the dominant estate are referred to as the encumbered property, or sometimes the servient estate when discussing easements).

In King County, you can access certain more recently recorded documents for free directly through the county recorder on line. But the easiest and probably most reliable way is to contact a title company. Unfortuantely I think they now all charge a small fee for customer service so you likely will have to pay to get what you’re looking for.

On the county web site in King Co you can search for records for free, and if the record is from after about 1990 a lot of times you can pull the text of the document up on line. In my experience, this isn’t a very reliable way to find documents, especially if you don’t already have the recording number or the document isn’t an ordinary deed or something similar. Also, I don’t think the smaller counties offer this type of access yet, although Pierce and Snohomish might.

You can also go to the King County Dept of Records and do a search on their computer or maybe on micro fiche(?), but in 25+ years of dealing with title issues, I don’t think I ever did that.

The common way to access documents is to contact a title company. There are a couple of ways to pursue this. If you know that a particular parcel is benefited or encumbered by a well agreement recorded against the property, you could ask the customer service department to search the title of the parcel for a well agreement and any amendments thereto and to email you a copy. They will likely charge you a fee, probably a few dollars per document for this service. There is no guaranty that they will find the document even if there actually is a well agreement recorded against the property. There are a number of reasons for this including that they may have screwed up or that the ageement is titled as something other than a “Well Agreement” or that the agreement is burried in some other document with a different title. This is just a search by a customer service person and the title company has no liability to you even if the customer service person is incompetent and fails to find a well agreement that has been recorded. I would ask them for the price for the service before I had them do anything. It’s usually a small fee so I sometimes would contact a couple of different title companies and ask for the same thing just in case one company didn’t do a good job on the search. Also, I think some companies won’t event do customer service work for people who aren’t attorney’s or realtors or others who can refer them business so you might have to contact a couple of companies to find one that will help you.

If you know which parcel has the well on it, probably the most accurate alternative would be to contact a title company and request a Preliminary Commitment for Title Insurance on that Parcel, including copies of all the underlying documents. If there is a well agreement, it should be recorded against that parcel, and listed in the commitment for title insurance as an exception to title with a full copy of the recorded document included in the group of “underlying documents.” The fee for the title insurance would be several hundred dollars at minimum. But you don’t intend to buy the policy so they will end up charging you a “cancellation fee” for the title commitment which used to run about $50 plus tax (maybe a little more now).

When you call the title company you probably want to have the tax parcel number and address of the property with the well on it. If you have the legal description and the owners name that would probably also be helpful to the title insurance company.

HI SCOTSMAN

The banks today remind me of the evil Mr. Potter on the “Its a Wonderful Life” Christmas DVD.

He too offerred to buy their homes for pennies on the dollar, after the banks closed their doors.

County records.

Why would you address this to me? Of course this is what happened, but so what?

So what? What does any of this have to do with you or me?

The lending was a grab for assets with free money. Banks borrowed money to lend so as the whole thing unravels the banks, or investors, end up with the assets, and default. I should say the corporations default on the money they borrowed. We then blame the home owners who took out the HELOCs, but the billions corporations borrowed get forgotten.

Yes the wealthy are going to be more wealthy.

For all the talk here about the velocity of money and t-bills the only thing you can count on is you. Some one mentioned that the Constitution does not call for a standing army. What it does is put the rights to protection into the hands of the militia.

OK stay with me for a minute, there is a point.

You have individual rights. We also have the right to form a more perfect union. You community is a big part of that union. Rather than putting your money into the bank or stock market you are going to need to invest in your community first.

The rate of return on a CD is !.4% and your bank is making loans at 6%. You would be dollars ahead to buy a kid on your block a lawn mower so they can service your community and pay you back with interest.

Your government of the community is a stepping stone to a larger solution.

I used your Seattle Bubble Resources to find a parcel and associated deeds. But now, I’m looking for Title information so I can craft a shared well water agreement…I think I should be able see this information in title information for properties I know a shared well exists.

How can I find title information?

thanks

“There is/was a triple looting that occurred

1) Bankers and brokers put people into debt and took their commissions. Most of this lending was fraudulent. That commission money is gone, and it’s in the trillions if you include the billions that get made during bull"chocolate" corporate mergers and takeovers. That was looting operation number one, enriching the banks and brokers. The middle and lower class who are defaulting on their houses? Everything they invested in that house basically ends up in the pockets of the perpetrators of looting operation #1, massive movement of money into the hands of those who already have plenty, from those who barely have enough.

2) The Banks, flush with capital, pay their employees, shareholders and board members from the loot pot. Goldman Sachs paid out 18 billion in bonuses. AIG, who knows. That’s looting operation #2: launder the ill gotten gains into salaries and bonuses quickly, scatter it to the winds so it’s almost impossible to recover. There is so much malfeasance here such as AIG restoring Goldman Sachs 12 billion of Credit Default Swaps at face value, money that technically didn’t come to Goldman from the TARP, so doesn’t have to be repaid. Nice move. Of course AIG will go under and all 180 billion funded by the taxpayer will be lost. You don’t hear about AIG paying back any TARP funds do you? Hundreds of billions taken from taxpayers, right into the pockets of the already wealthiest people on Earth.

3) With the loot safely stashed, the banks hold onto SOME of the bad deals they made, oops. These mortgages go sour. Wells Fargo, and BofA each have 800 billion face value or so of mortgages, nowhere near worth that much at market value. They are losing billions in value each month and the Federal Reserve and Federal Government are propping up these assets, especially the stocks of the banks so the people in the know can dump their positions before the real crash occurs. That’s looting operation #3. Taxpayer money keeping the criminals and con artists in business.

So the Fed and the Government can proclaim all they want that inflation isn’t a problem, but what is happening is biflation, one sector of the population is getting a LOT more money, while the other, much larger part, is losing money. It’s disgusting but it’s so abstract that not enough people are angered by it.”

Someone added later that step 4 was to have the wealthy come back after the depression had set in and buy ALL the valuable assets for pennies on the dollar. They may be on to something… As a side note, I read over the weekend that GoldmanSachs is getting ready to pay out record bonuses. It seems they had a great first quarter.. Have a great day!