Mercury Network News

Appraisers are used to toiling away in relative obscurity, but suddenly the national spotlight is shining on the industry, and in an area that normally is shrouded in comparative secrecy: Fees. More interestingly, people outside the profession are actually worried that appraisal fees may be too low, not too high.   Click to view..

While county-level analysis may seem to be the most relevant to the fees you charge on a day to day basis, there’s no denying the fact that your business doesn’t operate in a vacuum.   Click to view..

Hawaii is looking better and better to appraisers these days, especially as record snow storms strike large parts of the continental United States. Who can blame them for wanting to sit on the beach and collect among the highest fees in the nation, in a location that also happens to be one of the busiest as well?
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Real estate news service Inman News recently reported on our Appraisal Fee Reference™   Click to view..

There’s a common misperception out there — especially among appraisal clients — that the “oversupply” of appraisers has created a market where there is no fee too low.   Click to view..

We developed the national Appraisal Fee Reference™ to be the authoritative guide to average and median appraisal fees for a base URAR. It is just one of the monthly data sets published as part of our Appraisal Industry Analytics™ practice.
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a la mode today released the first public edition of The Appraisal Fee Reference™. The AFR™ is the authoritative national analysis of independent appraisal fees, and is just one of the monthly data sets published as part of a la mode’s Appraisal Industry Analytics™ practice.   Click to view..

Integration with Mercury Network will provide PCLender.com clients with enhanced access to local market real estate appraisal expertise on a nationwide basis while ensuring HVCC-compliant appraiser independence.   Click to view..

As we've written several times before, the HVCC provided ample incentive for mortgage brokers and appraisers to become allies united behind a common cause. Since we single-handedly bore the cost of raising awareness among appraisers and mortgage brokers about the HVCC last year, we were happy to find afterward that the National Association of Mortgage Brokers (NAMB) recognized the difficulty in what we did, and wanted to cooperate and consult on HVCC issues. Eventually, NAMB decided to take the battle to the courts, but withdrew the lawsuit after the government claimed its actions as conservators of Fannie and Freddie are not subject to judicial review (even though, obviously, the HVCC was started prior to the government bailout). As a last-ditch effort, NAMB asked us if we would distribute their "Follow Up Call to Action" to our appraiser list nationwide, which we're happy to do for them. We encourage you to…   Click to view..

With each issue of The AppraisalPress, we find ourselves discussing how dramatically things have changed in the short span since the last issue. While we originally thought we'd be dealing with a rapid comment-and-revision cycle on the proposed HVCC a year ago, we never envisioned it dragging out this long (the "final" HVCC takes effect May 1st), nor did we think there would be so much chaos and tumult along the way. It's an understatement to say that things have been out of control. It's certainly made our jobs harder, but even more importantly, it's made yours almost completely unpredictable.   Click to view..

Too many appraisers mistake a website as a mere yellow pages ad or online billboard when the reality is a website should also play a key role in how you service your clients and run your business. Since we’re smack dab in the middle of our 23rd successful year in business, let’s point out 23 ways an XSite will help you be successful, too.   Click to view..

On October 20th, 2002 at the Mortgage Bankers Association's 89th Annual Convention & Expo, a small group of us from a la mode rolled a wicked looking stainless steel Harley Davidson V-Rod into the convention hall of the Hyatt Regency in Chicago.   Click to view..

It’s been my experience that originators look at the process of ordering, reviewing, and receiving appraisals as inefficient. The problem isn’t appraisers, however, who are on the leading edge of mortgage technology. Lenders don’t seem to take advantage of technology to decrease the inefficient, often manual, processes. Despite readily available technology, many originators and AMCs do it the hard way — fax or e-mail the appraiser an order, call daily for status, request the appraisal via e-mail and hope it gets to them, call again if it doesn’t, call again if there are questions about the report, and then manually type the information from the appraisal into the loan software. Later, if there’s a question and the originator can’t find the PDF, they call the appraiser again for a copy. Sound familiar?
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New form for appraisers using Mercury takes important step toward HVCC compliance.   Click to view..

We're giving away $69,000 in cold, hard cash to help drive traffic to the Mercury Network.   Click to view..

If you've been reading the articles in this newspaper for a while regarding our revised Mercury Network, you might think that it will wind up being nothing more than a new AMC-like venture, or something akin to FNC's AppraisalPort hub. But ordering and delivering appraisals will be just the tip of the iceberg.   Click to view..

The real estate market, and the appraisal industry specifically, has been in
unprecedented upheaval during this correction, especially in these last few
months. Every time you think you’ve seen it all, another bombshell comes
along to rattle what you thought was your strong understanding...   Click to view..

As the market naturally erodes due to fewer real estate transactions, and as the HVCC pushes the remaining transactions in ever-increasing numbers to appraisal management companies (AMCs), many appraisers are kicking around the notion of creating a member-owned AMC, or "co-op".   Click to view..

It's clear that no matter how the HVCC plays out, there will be continued pressure to implement some sort of firewall to shield lenders from the liability inherent in loan production staff applying potential coercion to appraisers. In fact, it's been a general requirement for years, most recently dating to the "interagency memo" in 2005 from the OCC, the OTS, the FDIC, and the Fed — the HVCC just imposes it on lenders in a more abrupt and internally meddlesome way, with additional negative consequences.
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In the last issue, the most popular article by far was "Preventing the AMC fee cut". This issue, we're looking at the bigger $6.3B valuation market and the role that an "un-AMC" may be able to play in keeping a much larger share of in your own pocket.   Click to view..