Matrix Blog

Washington DC

Three Hours On C-SPAN Yields One Granddaughter

May 21, 2023 | 10:09 am | Events |

On Friday morning, I was one of five expert witnesses (and the only as an appraiser) to testify on the topic of appraisal bias in front of the Appraisal Subcommittee (ASC). The witnesses waited together in the green room, plus additional The Appraisal Foundation (TAF) staff. We had a delightful conversation – everyone was very friendly and a pleasure to be with, given the adversarial nature of our looming testimony.

I’ve spoken many hundreds of times on national television but never on C-SPAN, so participating in this event was a bucket list check-off for me. The FHFA auditorium and facilities were impressive – the organization of the event was first class and ran very smoothly (way to go, Julie!).

During the first hour of testimony, our fourth grandchild was born. My wife was in the audience and stepped out of the hearing (the nerve!) to take the call from my oldest son on the news of our new granddaughter.

The Appraisal Subcommittee (ASC) held a second hearing on challenges facing the appraisal industry, including barriers to entering the profession and racial bias in home appraisals. The panel’s first hearing on such topics occurred in January. The ASC is an interagency committee under the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council and oversees real estate appraisal regulations. The Federal Housing Finance Agency hosted the event at its headquarters in Washington, DC.

It’s a three-hour hearing, but if you are connected to the appraisal industry in any way, I encourage you to listen. You can hear my opening statement at about the 26-minute mark. The text on the C-SPAN website was generated from unedited closed captions. Here was my formal statement, but since the timing was strictly limited to 5 minutes, I read this abbreviated version, which in hindsight, was better and more to the point.


Afterwards…

Three regulators from the ASC came to me from the stage immediately afterward and said I was the best dressed in the room, and they loved my tie. I wasn’t expecting that. Ha. All were very nice. My wife and I immediately shared pictures of our new granddaughter.

Thoughts…

Morgan Williams, General Counsel, National Fair Housing Alliance – He was a compelling witness – he drove home that he wanted access to anonymized loan-level data to determine the potential valuation bias.

Angela G. Jemmott, Bureau Chief, California Bureau of Real Estate Appraisers, Member of the Association of Appraiser Regulatory Officials. She was a powerhouse of testimony, advocating practicum solutions in addition to PAREA.

Michelle Czekalski Bradley, Certified General Appraiser, Chair of the Appraisal Standards Board (ASB) of TAF, was earnest and towed the Dave Bunton narrative. When the CFPB head went after her for the conflict of interest of her position, she named me by name (an unforced error) and said there was no conflict. She may believe that with all her heart, but most of her peers in the industry think otherwise. Her husband is a senior official at McKissock, the largest provider of online appraisal courses, and they have a financial arrangement with TAF on USPAP courses – and Michelle heads the board that makes changes to USPAP. This is another example of the stunning lack of oversight for this not-for-profit (TAF) that modifies USPAP that becomes embedded into laws in the 50 states and five territories. I’m sure she means well and, in her mind, is giving back to the industry, but she is remarkably oblivious to the optics of her position. I believe Dave Bunton hand-selected her for her ability to follow orders. TAF is a monarchy, nothing less.

Brad Swinney, Chief Appraiser, Farm Credit Bank of Texas, Chair of the Appraiser Qualifications Board (AQB), had a hard time presenting and defending PAREA. He, like Michelle, was hand selected by Dave Bunton after the prior AQB chair was removed immediately because he wanted to explore the stunning lack of diversity in the appraisal profession. (We’re 98% white and dead last (400 of 400) as tracked by the BLS). So it follows that if the prior chair was removed immediately after trying to dig into the appraisal industry’s lack of diversity, then it’s just a hop, skip, and jump to assume that Brad was brought in to follow Dave Bunton’s position of staying away from the topic. Brad mentioned several times that “someone” (me) was saying 1,500 hours of experience were required, yet he stated only 1,000 hours were required for residential certification experience. As the AQB chair, he was uninformed. I was referring to the New York State requirement for 1,500 hours as a New York City appraiser, as noted on the New York State website.

I’m glad we’ve cleared that up.

TAF’s representatives (Michelle & Brad) were under siege by the ASC board and did not do well under fire. They found themselves wiggling to defend the indefensible even though they were hand-picked by Dave Bunton for their ability to toe the party line. Both tried hard to frame themselves in a silo – Michelle – when it came to how board members were selected and Brad – how they had no responsibility for how much PAREA would cost appraisers. To be clear, TAF had always pushed back hard on PAREA until Dave realized that it could be used to divert attention from, and possibly have a positive influence, on our industry’s stunning lack of diversity.

When I was highly critical of the two-year cycle in my testimony and how TAF goes back and forth on rules that confuse everyone, Michelle brought up the current four-year run of USPAP without changes and how on January 1st, there will not be an expiration date. The problem with framing it that way was that TAF claimed USPAP was frozen for four years because of COVID. Dave saw the pressure coming for change and used COVID as an excuse, yet the reality was that Zoom became ubiquitous, and there was no reason to stop the cycle other than to use COVID to save face. Dave recently realized that because states required USPAP 7-hour update courses every two years, they were still going to benefit from a revenue flow from the classes and could still avoid grant money from the ASC so they wouldn’t have any “strings” attached to their actions. Dave can still fly all over the world on boondoggles to valuation conferences, dining on steak and fine wine without scrutiny. I brought up in my testimony that only about 15 minutes of each 7-hour update class contained new information.

To be clear, only one person of color has been on a technical board (ASB + AQB) in the 3+ decade history of The Appraisal Foundation, which has been led by the same person the entire time. And that one person, despite being highly qualified, was only accepted on the board because of significant outside pressure from myself and a handful of others. Proof of this is that no more persons of color were invited to any of their boards in the ensuing three years.

For many TAF board members, this is just a resume builder. They won’t do anything to forward progress in the industry because Dave Bunton and his sycophants will work hard to prevent it like they just did on the AQB. But some people will work as insiders to make a difference as long as Dave and Kelly don’t know who they are.

This TAF “byzantine and weird” corporate bureaucracy is an unfair burden to everyday working appraisers and is destroying the public trust. I hope last Friday’s testimony helped confirm a few reasons why there is no diversity in the industry, and it will enable the ASC to push for accountability and change at TAF.

Tags: , , , , , , ,


My First Post on Bloomberg View: Homebuying Gets a Housecleaning

July 28, 2014 | 9:28 pm | | Charts |

BVlogo

I was recently approached by Bloomberg View, the editorial arm of Bloomberg LP, to provide commentary on the housing market. I seem to be in good company.

Although their well oiled machine began to append my additional title “Bloomberg Contributor” earlier in the month when being sourced, it wasn’t an oversight on their part. I didn’t submit my first post until last week. It took me a few weeks to get my groove on as I was in the midst of a 2Q14 market report release gauntlet.

Last Wednesday evening I wrote my first post about Lawrence Yun’s attendance at the Zillow Housing Forum and how NAR had become just one of the crowd, and the symbolism of it all. I got the idea when I was sent the Zillow e-vite to attend the conference and I noticed that Yun was to speak.

Excited, I submitted my first post on Thursday morning, unfortunately just before the Zillow-Trulia bombshell deal jumped into the headlines. So I needed to add this new twist – which thankfully made my original point even stronger. I re-wrote my first post and it was placed online last Friday.

Here is the first column of hopefully many to come: Homebuying Gets a Housecleaning


My Bloomberg View RSS feed.

Tags: , , ,


[Three Cents Worth DC #214] The Real Reasons House Prices Are Rising

October 24, 2012 | 7:00 am | | Articles |

It’s time to share my Three Cents Worth (3CW) on Curbed DC, at the intersection of neighborhood and real estate in the nation’s capitol. And I’m simply here to take measurements.

Read this week’s 3CW column on @CurbedDC:

…I wrote this post a few hours before the third presidential debate and since the topic covers foreign policy and the first two debates (plus the VP debate) had only scant mention of housing, I didn’t think I’d get anymore insights on what our policy makers think is happening in the housing market. Both parties clearly see no bonus points in bringing up a complex subject that won’t score any points (and only happens to be our nation’s largest asset class).

So I am asking the question – Why are housing prices rising in the DMV (and the US)?…

 

[click to read column]


Curbed NY : Three Cents Worth Archive
Curbed DC : Three Cents Worth Archive
Curbed Miami : Three Cents Worth Archive

Tags: , , , ,


[Three Cents Worth DC #208] Keep Your Eye On The Numbers (For The Past Decade)

September 13, 2012 | 12:24 pm | | Articles |

It’s time to share my Three Cents Worth (3CW) on Curbed DC, at the intersection of neighborhood and real estate in the nation’s capitol. And I’m simply here to take measurements.

Read this week’s 3CW column on @CurbedDC:

…I thought it would be visually helpful to show the ebb of and flow of the DC Metro area’s housing market. And since I just learned how to rotate a GIF image, I’m making up for all the art classes I never took in high school (band). I trended a decade’s worth of the robust web data from the regional MLS (RBI, a division of MRIS)—monthly new pending home sales and median sales price in a two year moving window. I also inserted some commentary on the milestones during the decade (i.e. highest points for price and sales, lowest points for price and sales, Lehman/credit crunch, tax credit, etc). Hopefully it’s not too distracting…

 

[click to read column]


Curbed NY : Three Cents Worth Archive
Curbed DC : Three Cents Worth Archive
Curbed Miami : Three Cents Worth Archive

Tags: , , , , ,


[Three Cents Worth DC #205] Does The History of The DMV’s New Listings Predict The Next Housing Slogan?

August 29, 2012 | 4:57 pm | | Articles |

It’s time to share my Three Cents Worth (3CW) on Curbed DC, at the intersection of neighborhood and real estate in the nation’s capitol. And I’m simply here to take measurements.

Read this week’s 3CW column on @CurbedDC:

…No. But please read on. It’s been a while since I’ve placed a chart of Curbed DC, and even longer since I was politically correct (but hey, I’m really trying). With the RNC underway and DNC up next, I thought I’d try to find some sort of correlation to the DC Metro housing market that coincides with the party of the president voted into office and their slogan/theme. Obviously the elections aren’t all about housing, but housing is very important in terms of its economic impact and “Wealth Effect” influence” on the US economy. Doh! I looked at MRIS’ awesome online resources and thought that new listing history might tell the story – I clearly went overboard so please indulge me. My thinking was new listings reflect people placing listings on the market in reaction to their view or opportunity with the world around them. Job transfer, lost job, trading up, cashing out, etc….

 

[click to read column]


Curbed NY : Three Cents Worth Archive
Curbed DC : Three Cents Worth Archive
Curbed Miami : Three Cents Worth Archive

Tags: , , , ,


[Three Cents Worth DC #194] DC’s Housing Market Turns The Tide; Good News For Sellers

June 11, 2012 | 11:01 am | | Articles |

It’s time to share my Three Cents Worth (3CW) on Curbed DC, at the intersection of neighborhood and real estate in the nation’s capitol. And I’m simply here to take measurements.

Read today’s 3CW post on @CurbedDC:

Here’s my chart version of the May 2012 report published by RBI/MRIS. They’ve got terrific data and when Curbed DC asked me to go old school and bring back the charts so the trends would be easier to understand, I gladly obliged. I called up my inner Three Cents Worth days in DC…

[click to expand]


Tags: , , , , ,


[CoreLogic] Home Price Index 2.6% YOY and 0.8% MOM Increase

June 21, 2010 | 9:58 am | |


[click to expand]

CoreLogic (Formerly First American) released their Home Price Index Report for April 2010

“The monthly increase in the HPI shows the lingering effects of the homebuyer tax credit,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic. “We expect that we will see home prices remain strong through early summer, but in the second half of the year we expect price growth to soften and possibly decline moderately.”

Of the biggest markets, Washington DC best, Chicago worst:

Of the 50 states, Idaho and Illinois show largest YOY decline:

Notes: The index is a compilation of repeat sales transactions going back to the mid-1970s, from CoreLogic’s own property information and its securities and servicing databases covering all 50 states. The index tracks increases and decreases in sales prices for the same homes over time, which provides a more accurate “constant-quality” view of pricing trends than basing analysis on all home sales.

The report is the only major one I am aware of that breaks out distressed properties from actual – I tend to ignore the breakdown since I don’t see these markets as mutually exclusive. In other words, distressed properties compete with non-distressed and by simply removing the distressed properties from the mix, price trends of the non-distressed properties were still impacted by distressed sales.



[In The Media] Bloomberg News 3-23-2010

March 24, 2010 | 12:18 pm | | Public |


[click to play clip]

I did a short interview on Bloomberg yesterday regarding their coverage of Knight Frank’s 2010 Wealth Report

The Bloomberg coverage was in reference to my contribution to the report via interview where they matched me up against their analyst Xavier Wong, Head of Research for Greater China and Hong Kong.

The prime New York market, where prices fell 12.5% in 2009, is gaining strength , but the recovery is tentative, says Leading New York property commentator Jonathan Miller

The frozen market in Manhattan in the first half of 2009 gave way to a much stronger second half of the year. By the summer, the market began to see a recovery in sales activity following an improvement in economic confidence prompted by a revival in the stock market.

While the market has undoubtedly improved compared with last year, we ought not to get too excited. The recovery of late 2009 was a short-term uptick, due in large part to a release in pent-up demand. My view is that the surge in demand is not the start of a rising housing market. While sales are up sharply, prices have moved “sideways.”

I have some lingering concerns for the New York market in 2010. The market has been aided by government stimulus measures – tax credits for first time buyers, in particular. This package will expire in mid-2010. While the US economy is growing, the high rate of unemployment – around 10% and somewhat higher locally – as well as a tight mortgage lending environment do not provide a firm basis for ongoing growth in house prices.

A real fear for 2010 is rising mortgage rates, currently at near record lows. The potential for growing foreclosures, which were not a problem in 2009, is another real factor.

One segment of the market that has seen a noticeable uptick has been international demand, where the weak dollar has prompted interest from Asia, Europe and South America. Demand from South Korea has also become more noticeable.

Looking outside New York, both Boston and Washington DC have also improved, with rising resale volumes in both markets. On Long Island, the Hamptons luxury second home market has surprised everyone with its resilience to date. As a discretionary market, there was general concern that this region would see large declines in prices and sales from the 2008 and early-2009 market turmoil. In fact, both sales and price trends have remained in line with the Manhattan market.

Watch the clip which summarizes the report [Bloomberg]
Open 2010 Wealth Report [Knight Frank]


Tags: , ,


[Affordable Housing] In The Zone, Being Inclusionary

April 5, 2008 | 10:35 pm | |

I recently got a copy of The Effects of Inclusionary Zoning on Local Housing Markets: Lessons from the San Francisco, Washington DC and Suburban Boston Areas researched by Jenny Schuetz, Rachel Meltzer, and Vicki Been of the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy at New York University. I have had the pleasure of knowing Vicki Been and the good work of the Furman Center. Last summer I had honor of having a paper I co-authored with the Furman Center back in 2003 published in the Journal of Legal Studies.

I’ve always been intrigued by the influence of zoning on housing: why a town or neighborhood has a consistent housing stock, higher end type of property, limited multi-unit dwellings, limited of commercial space, (let alone the lack of chain-link fences, a key source of suburban blight).

Zoning tends to be exclusion based to keep affordable housing out of specific areas and has a lot to due with whether a housing market is higher priced in certain markets and not in others.

Inclusionary zoning, also known as inclusionary housing, refers to municipal and county planning ordinances that require that a given share of new construction be affordable to people with low to moderate incomes.

the average annual number of single-family permits issued during the 1980s, 1990s and since 2000. As shown in the first two groups, the changes in annual permits since 1980 are quite similar when comparing all jurisdictions that had not adopted IZ by 2006 and all those that had adopted IZ at some point. However, this comparison obscures considerable variation among jurisdictions with IZ, as shown in the last four groups of columns. In particular, those jurisdictions that adopted IZ prior to 1980 or after 2000 issued substantially more permits, both before and after adoption, than jurisdictions that adopted IZ in the 1980s and 1990s. The most recent adopters seem to have been developing much more rapidly in the early decades and saw dramatic drops in the number of permits, even before adopting IZ.

Although less pronounced, there is also considerable variation in changes in housing prices among jurisdictions with IZ (Figure 7.2). Jurisdictions that adopted IZ prior to 1980 had higher than average housing prices as early as 1980 and have seen some of the sharpest increases in prices between 1980 and 2000. This would be consistent with either the explanation that IZ resulted in higher prices in those locations, or that jurisdictions with strong location-specific demand were some of the first to adopt IZ. As of 1980, jurisdictions that adopted IZ in the 1980s and 1990s more closely resembled those that have never adopted IZ, and have seen price increases roughly comparable to the non-IZ group since then. The most recent adopters, which had some of the lowest housing prices at the beginning of our study period, have seen relatively modest price increases, and in 2000 were still relatively affordable.

Such zoning can be controversial. It is often done without public funds and can promote economic and racial integration, but can restrict development of open market properties, creating higher priced housing, reducing affordability.

The report draft is a good read.

While you’re at it, take a look at The Effect of Community Gardens on Neighboring Property by Vicki, and my co-author Ioan Voicu. Interesting stuff.



Northern Virginia Is For Weak Housing: July 2007

August 27, 2007 | 3:00 pm |

[This market recap on the Northern Virginia from MLS data is compiled by [Butch Hicks](http://bhicks.com), a former president of [RAC (Relocation Appraisers and Consultants)](http://www.rac.net) (that I am a member of), a friend and an experienced appraiser in Northern Virginia. The results of his efforts are published on his web site as [a series of charts](http://www.bhicks.com/statistics.htm), each with a brief summary. (As a kid growing up in the Washington DC area, I was bombarded by “Virginia is for Lovers” tourism ads, and of course “DC is for US, by George”)] -Jonathan Miller


[View the charts [BHicks.com]](http://www.bhicks.com/statistics.htm)

Rising inventory, flat sales levels and prices slipping…same news as March 2007.

Here’s a sample of the charts available online.




  • The median price paid at the end of July, 2007 was $452,167, a decrease of 1% from the same time period 12 months earlier.
  • At the end of July, 2007, inventory was eight months, an increase of 24% from one year earlier.


Tags:


Givin’ Speeches About Mortgages And Housing: No Answers, Only Solutions

July 21, 2007 | 6:13 pm | |

On the same day last week, Wednesday to be precise, presentations touching on the housing market were given by two influential financial leaders: Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and James B. Lockhart III, Director of OFHEO, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (GSE’s). Both are accomplished individuals whose jobs influence the housing market to a certain degree. I am not sure which one I would have liked to have heard in person so could only hope for a double header.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke (Its been a year and a half, so I feel like I can refer to the Fed Chair as Ben) spoke in front of Congress, before the Committee on Financial Services, U.S. House of Representatives. He is required by law to do this twice per year and I kind of feel sorry for him. I listened to his live testimony on CNBC and was struck by how smart he is and how weak most of the questions posed to him were. After 2 minutes of thank-you’s from each member of the committee, they asked him to explain things like core inflation and how he was going to protect subprime borrowers in the future. The media coverage of the testimony was extensive and rather than spending much of the time talking about the economy, the bulk of the questions from Congress was spent on protection of borrowers, the problems with hedge funds, lax underwriting and why didn’t the Fed see this coming. Bernanke’s macro perspective seemed a little out of sync with the questions posed. I was struck by his references to the housing market, which suggest more weakness to come:

The pace of home sales seems likely to remain sluggish for a time, partly as a result of some tightening in lending standards and the recent increase in mortgage interest rates. Sales should ultimately be supported by growth in income and employment as well as by mortgage rates that–despite the recent increase–remain fairly low relative to historical norms. However, even if demand stabilizes as we expect, the pace of construction will probably fall somewhat further as builders work down stocks of unsold new homes. Thus, declines in residential construction will likely continue to weigh on economic growth over coming quarters, although the magnitude of the drag on growth shoul

…and subprime, which was more dire:

For the most part, financial markets have remained supportive of economic growth. However, conditions in the subprime mortgage sector have deteriorated significantly, reflecting mounting delinquency rates on adjustable-rate loans. In recent weeks, we have also seen increased concerns among investors about credit risk on some other types of financial instruments.

James B. Lockhart III, Director of OFHEO (Its been a year since he took over OFHEO and my rule of thumb for someone with roman numerals after their name is to avoid nicknames so I’ll refer to him as James) gave a year in review speech in Washington DC. He referred to unexpected challenges: housing and subprime. In other words, it was a surprise that the housing market is currently experiencing problems. How could an agency that deals with two large mortgage bemoths be in the dark about the housing market? However, he makes the observation that the GSE’s should be “fulfilling their mission of stabilizing the housing markets.” He refers to the “triple-witching” of the subprime market because of the tripling of subprime originations, the shift to non fully amortizing mortgages and the drop in lending standards. His emphasis was on subprime lending and how the GSE’s can help:

Despite the many problems in the subprime mortgage market it has made a positive contribution toward getting low-income individuals into their first homes. (#12)
Hopefully, the changes I have been talking about today will be continued to help place people into affordable housing without putting them and their neighborhoods into high- risk situations.

It is my belief that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can do even more to help in what is one of their key mission areas – affordable housing. It is also my belief that to do so they must be fully remediated with strong systems to address the credit issues in this sector and that they need a strong regulator to help ensure that they are healthy, well-managed companies.

To recap both speeches

We have both banking and mortgage oversight institutions caught unaware of the growing problems with subprime, we have a government agency responsible with the oversight of government sponsored enterprises (GSE’s) saying that it should be dissolved and a new oversight agency formed that would be more effective and we had lending standards drop sharply without reaction from regulators.

So I think I am impressed with everyone’s intentions of fixing things, but don’t we need to understand what went wrong? How can we fix it if we didn’t see it coming? I think Congress was really asking questions of Ben that it could have been answered by James. The whole thing is backwards.


Tags: , , , ,


Northern Virginia Is For Slipping: March 2007

May 3, 2007 | 11:05 pm |

[This market recap on the Northern Virginia from MLS data is compiled by [Butch Hicks](http://bhicks.com), a former president of [RAC (Relocation Appraisers and Consultants)](http://www.rac.net) (that I am a member of), a friend and an experienced appraiser in Northern Virginia. The results of his efforts are published on his web site as [a series of charts](http://www.bhicks.com/statistics.htm), each with a brief summary. (As a kid growing up in the Washington DC area, I was bombarded by “Virginia is for Lovers” tourism ads, and of course “DC is for US, by George”)] -Jonathan Miller


[View the charts [BHicks.com]](http://www.bhicks.com/statistics.htm)

Rising inventory, flat sales levels and prices slipping…sound familiar?

Here’s a sample of the charts available online.




  • The median price paid at the end of March, 2007 was $442,336, a decrease of 3.6% from the same time period 12 months earlier.
  • At the end of March, 2007, inventory was six months, an increase of 46% from one year earlier.


Tags:

Get Weekly Insights and Research

Housing Notes by Jonathan Miller

Receive Jonathan Miller's 'Housing Notes' and get regular market insights, the market report series for Douglas Elliman Real Estate as well as interviews, columns, blog posts and other content.

Follow Jonathan on Twitter

#Housing analyst, #realestate, #appraiser, podcaster/blogger, non-economist, Miller Samuel CEO, family man, maker of snow and lobster fisherman (order varies)
NYC CT Hamptons DC Miami LA Aspen
millersamuel.com/housing-notes
Joined October 2007