Here’s a recent situation with a national lender we rarely work with. One of my staff got the following request:
>I got an addendum request from [bank] today. The borrower says they have better views then the comps used. Borrower says they don’t have to look at the “less desirable” neighbors, a housing project.
>If I agree could I please make the appropriate adjustment.
Good grief.
Has this banker ever heard of Fair Housing? You can’t make this stuff up.
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It is called the banks not playing the heavy or maybe passing the buck.
But, that does bring up some
questions about differences within a neighborhood. The bank said “less desirable”. Is that bank code for a protected class? Do buyers distinguish between properties based on orientation within the neighborhood?
Have you actually read Fair Housing Laws? they have nothing to do with views, or, for that matter, housing projects. Maybe you should worry a little less about being so politically correct; views of a housing project, do, in fact, decrease value, and I thought that is what you are concerned with?
Yes John, plus thats part of our appraiser licensing coursework and recertification. Try not to label things you disagree with – its not about being PC – although I think most of us do diverge to that when in the company of others. Its about the terminology used and the fact that the lender CALLED us up for a subjective reason – not because there is new data to consider (ie there is a contract across the street). There are all sorts of terminology and descriptions that BY LAW can’t be part of the mortgage process. In the end, we estimate market value based on data, evidence and observation, not because a borrower has a personal issue with the view.
In fact, all the comps in the assignment have similar locational influences and therefore take such a factor into account, if indeed it is a factor. But to make an adjustment because someone says you have to look at something that they don’t like is what is pretty unbelievable.
Sorry for the rantiness of the response but I think you need to have another cup of coffee as do I.
I see. You think this is an “eye of the beholder” situation and not something that cam be quantified.
i once had a seller get grief from a closing agent for not having her husband there to sign the deed. too bad he had passed away a few months earlier, the agent complained about having to go look up a death certificat.e