Appraisal Institute Board of Directors Tried To Sneak Sham Bylaw Changes Past Membership

January 6, 2021 | 12:26 am | Investigative |

Back on December 4, 2020, I wrote about the sham bylaw change being floated by the Appraisal Institute to avoid the embarrassment of the recent sham election process: The Sham 45-Day Bylaw Modification Process To Keep Jim Amorin’s Sham Petition Process Explained

To rush this through, the Appraisal Institute Board of Directors meeting is being held Wednesday, January 6th with sketchy notice.

Don Boucher, SRA and Jennifer Marshall, SRA, AI-RRS came through for membership and forwarded notice of the meeting. – send Joan an email requesting the login as presented below

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Dear AI Professional,

We hope that 2021 will be a happy, healthy and prosperous year for you!

Sorry about the late notice but we wanted to make sure that you know about and request an invitation to the Special Board Meeting on January 6th at 3 EST. At the Meeting, the Board will be discussing and voting on changing the Bylaws based on the recommendations in 45-Day Notice on VP Election Process and memberships comments. To request the link to attend the meeting please contact the Board Secretary, Joan Barngrover, at jbarngrover@appraisalinstitute.org.

Thanks for continuing to be proactive and staying involved.

Regards,

Don Boucher, SRA and
Jennifer Marshall, SRA, AI-RRS

_________________________________________

Everyone who reads this post and who is a member of the Appraisal Institute should attend the virtual board meeting. As members, you have the right to log in to the meeting. Here’s how:

_________________________________________

Thank you for expressing your interest in attending the Special Board Call, January 6, 2:00 pm CT.

Following is the GoToMeeting connection information to observe this meeting. Please mute your phone when entering the event and please do not share your webcam. You will want to log on at least five minutes early as the meeting will begin right at 2:00 pm CT.

Please join my meeting from your computer, tablet or smartphone.
https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/876886637

You can also dial in using your phone.
United States: +1 (571) 317-3122
Access Code: 876-886-637

New to GoToMeeting? Get the app now and be ready when your first meeting starts:
https://global.gotomeeting.com/install/876886637.

_________________________________________

These changes being floated are so blatantly corrupt that it is beyond unethical. The purpose of these proposed bylaw edits to the existing bylaws will enable FOJs (Friends of Jim Amorin) to keep their own exclusive club paid for by the membership with salaries at 2x the market rate, first-class travel all over the world including wives and friends, and cornering control of lucrative teaching stipends as they have for the past 10+ years.

As a further sign of the lack of transparency, notification of the board meeting to vote on these sham maneuvers wasn’t adequate. Some members only received notice today (Tuesday) for a board meeting on Wednesday. The cynical me believes that this meeting was timed to occur at the moment there will be a massive global media circus in Washington, D.C. (Wednesday) to decide whether to confirm the state results in the federal election. In addition, it is three days into the New Year and they were clearly counting on rushing this under the radar before people wake up from their holiday grogginess. This is a strategic move pure and simple – to continue to wrestle control of the organization from membership and it marks the beginning of the end of the Appraisal Institute.

All eyes will be on the new AI President-Elect Rodman Schley, MAI, SRA at the Board of Directors meeting – who has created a favorable reputation with the membership as someone who believes in transparency and has showed signs of pushing back against the FOJ pillaging of this once-proud organization.

This is Rodman’s moment – if he allows for these sham changes without a fight and hides behind the use of “executive sessions,” he will be just another annual decorative rotation in the Presidential position – Jim Amorin’s posse gets to keep running AI National into the ground until it takes its last breath (in about 5 years).

Incidentally, I’ve been told a member has reached out to the Illinois State Attorney General for their interpretation of “executive sessions” as a tactic used by the Board of Directors to hide their actions – apparently it is not permissible because Illinois is an open session state.

At the end of the year, in the middle of the holidays, 76 Appraisal Institute members signed and sent a letter to their Board of Directors outlying what was wrong with the suggested bylaw changes in the 45-day notice letter. To wrangle 76 members in the middle of the holiday season in late December represents how upset these members were. All the signers are heroes as far as I’m concerned who care more about the future of the Appraisal Institute than its executives do.

Here it is:





Here are my thoughts on yet another sham election maneuver to ensure the continued corruption of The Appraisal Institute:

  • Any member of the Board of Directors who votes for these changes is corrupt and should be removed from their position immediately. They are in favor of self-dealing and not membership. The BOD should not be afraid to hide their votes.

  • The proposed changes are being made to enable CEO Jim Amorin to override the NNC after they thoroughly vet a candidate proposed from membership like they tried to do to Craig Steinley and failed because of the membership uproar. These bylaw edits are being made to tidy up the loopholes to make it happen next year.

  • The 6 year period to lockout executives after NNC membership should not be reduced to 4 years because it makes it easier for FOJ’s to self-deal.

  • To raise the 20% board member vote requirement to 30% is a pure sham. I believe most organizations require a supermajority to override. My goodness, the absolutely embarrassing procedure to insert FOJ Tankersly instead of the NNC’s Steinley thoroughly vetted nomination because Jim asked him to is unconscionable. Unconscionable that it was proposed and that Tankersly gladly accepted.

  • This bylaw edit more easily enables the Board of Directors and the executive team to publically smear and shame a vetted candidate who won. Guess what happens? Quality candidates won’t apply anymore. Only FOJs.

  • This bylaw edit is clearly an act of misconduct by the board. It is a blatant abuse of power and board members who vote for these edits could very well have legal exposure in the future.

  • “Executive sessions” or voting in secret is unethical – if you have to hide how you voted, then something is wrong with your motivations – you see yourself as answering to Jim Amorin and not the membership – you can’t have it both ways.

  • The proposal to ban any input on a candidate is bizarre and reflects the AI’s drift towards irrelevance through self-isolation. Elected officials, competing trade groups, regulators, etc. should all be relevant to weigh in on the quality of a candidate. This proposed edit essentially dictates that a candidate has to get recommendations from FOJs for an application. Incredible.

  • Finally, this bylaw edit is not being done for the membership – it is being done for FOJs exclusively. Imagine Jim Amorin explaining his edits in a public meeting – membership would be booing and throwing beer cans at him for the basic audacity of it.

Over the last decade, the Appraisal Institute went from 27K members to 17K members. That’s a 37% drop, trailing basic U.S. credential trends over the same period. What’s AI National going to look like in another decade with only 7K members?

The membership needs to apply the heat to the Board of Directors NOW. I’m also waiting for a board member to step up and get state and federal law enforcement to look at the sham election maneuvers as evidence of corruption.

My goodness Board of Directors, are you there only to pad your resume, or are you there to uphold the responsibility of the position? If you do nothing but go along then you’re just as corrupt as the FOJs.

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With All That PPP And Without All That Travel, The Appraisal Foundation Doesn’t Need A Grant From ASC This Year

August 19, 2020 | 1:36 pm | Investigative |

This post previously appeared in the August 14, 2020 edition of Housing Notes. I’ve been writing these weekly summaries on housing topics for more than five years. To subscribe for free, you can sign up here. Then you can look forward to each issue every Friday at 2pm New York Time.

The TAF decline in credibility keeps on coming…

After the recent letter debacle where the Appraisal Foundation (TAF) opined falsely that Title XI did not permit the Appraisal Subcommittee (ASC) to provide oversight on TAF, we now have a letter from TAF essentially saying they are making so much money that they don’t need a grant this year from ASC. Who is writing all these letters? It can’t be Dave.

[click for full pdf]

In other words, because TAF saved so much money from not being able to fly around the country during the pandemic, they don’t need ASC Grant money this year. From this point, it’s only a hop skip and a jump to saying they don’t need the grant money so therefore they don’t need oversight. And grant money comes with “strings attached” – that the money used from a grant had to be accounted for to the ASC. And if TAF doesn’t need oversight this year, what is to stop them from raising USPAP related fees and stop collecting grant money forever? The conspiracy theorist in me is starting to worry about that aspect of this new more forceful tone out of TAF these days against any oversight.

No Grants = TAF + PPP

Why would the TAF turn down the annual grant process but still have the need to request PPP? What is the hardship they are declaring when they are saving hundreds of thousands in travel costs that are already questionable in their scale?

My appraisal firm in Manhattan applied for PPP because our business collapsed more than 90% almost immediately for two months. It enabled us to survive. I would think it would be obvious to TAF that their $626,000 annual travel expense would collapse. What other revenues would be sharply curtailed in the new online world?

That’s why Jeremy Bagott, MAI, AI-GRS, the Cosmic Cobra guy, issued this press release on July 6th:


* * * FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE * * *


WITH MILLIONS IN CASH AND STOCKS, APPRAISAL FOUNDATION HAULS IN CARES ACT RELIEF

(LOS ANGELES, July 6, 2020) – Over the years, the tiny, publicly funded Appraisal Foundation has built up a large reserve in cash and publicly traded equities. Its war chest grew from $3.6 million in 2010 to $6.5 million in 2018, the most recent year its IRS Form 990 is available. Its Cause IQ peer nonprofits had nothing like it in their reserves. Despite this burgeoning pot, it has continued to receive public grant money each year from state-licensed appraisers via the mandatory National Registry Fee. In early July 2020, it was learned that, despite wielding this hefty reserve and its guarantee of annual public grant money, the nonprofit also applied for and received CARES Act relief through the Small Business Administration of between $150,000 and $350,000. This is money that could otherwise have gone to struggling mom-and-pop appraisers hurt by the pandemic.

From 2010 to 2018, the nation’s licensed appraisers paid the 14-employee organization more than $6 million through the mandatory National Registry Fee. The group then parlayed that subsidy into more than $27.6 million in publishing revenue extracted from the same captive appraisers during that time. It has copyrighted the publicly subsidized materials and granted exclusive online course rights.

In 2017, the foundation paid its top officer more than $760,000 in an internal retirement-plus-salary deal that effectively doubled his pay from the previous year. For 2018, trustees paid him $414,000 – less than the previous year’s haul but still more than twice the salary of the chairman of the Federal Reserve, who oversees 20,000 employees and the nation’s central bank.

These issues would be no one’s business were this organization not receiving guaranteed annual public grants, tax-exempt status and allowed to wield a government-authorized publishing franchise and contracts with the U.S. Department of the Interior and Department of Justice – and it is now receiving PPP money. A congressionally authorized federal contractor with guaranteed public grants is not what lawmakers had in mind when they passed the CARES Act, which includes the PPP program.

During this pandemic, expect to see licensed appraisers further weakened with fewer options and higher license upkeep costs. Expect the nonprofit to further leverage its copyrights – the development of which appraisers pay for. It is now receiving CARES Act relief. It has never let a good crisis go to waste.

If you’re frustrated, here’s something you can do right away:

Email Mark Abbott, Grants Director at the Appraisal Subcommittee, at Mark@asc.gov and James Park, its Executive Director, at Jim@asc.gov and tell them you want the Appraisal Foundation’s next grant to be reduced by whatever public funding the foundation has received from the CARES Act during the pandemic and its reserves of cash and publicly traded securities, which totaled $6.5 million as of its most recent IRS Form 990. The $40 National Registry Fee paid by appraisers each year ($80 at biennial license renewal) needs to be rolled back by a commensurate amount to provide relief to appraisers. The waste and abuse going on at this tiny nonprofit is being underwritten by the public and it needs to stop. Please cc Arthur Lindo at the Federal Reserve at arthur.lindo@frb.gov.


    • *

About “Dispatches from the Cosmic Cobra Breeding Farm”: The culmination of two years of research, a new book illuminates over-the-top spending and questionable dealings at the familiar Beltway nonprofit. Published just before the pandemic, it chronicles international jet-setting by officers and trustees, conflicts of interest, lobbyist tie-ins, outsized cash reserves and swollen pay at the tiny nonprofit. The book is available at Amazon in paperback and Kindle versions. You can read more about it on the book’s Amazon page.

The Appraisal Foundation’s IRS Form 990 may be viewed online at Propublica’s Nonprofit Explorer. To find it, Google “Propublica Nonprofit Explorer” and type “Appraisal Foundation” into the search box and follow the links.


# #


Here is another email from appraiser Jeremy Bagott (The Cosmic Cobra guy). Bold my emphasis.


Dear Colleague,

Thanks to the Small Business Administration’s data release on July 6, a few news outlets are working doggedly to expose organizations that, with dubious need, have applied for and received federal PPP relief. Ryan Tracy of the Wall Street Journal recently wrote about double-dipping by state highway contractors in Florida who applied for and received PPP relief despite holding government contracts unaffected by Covid. You can read the story here (but you’ll have to get past the Journal’s paywall).

A rogues’ gallery of organizations that have applied for PPP relief include Harvard University (with its $39 billion endowment), the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (with its reported $3.7 billion valuation) and, yes, the congressionally authorized Appraisal Foundation. The former two were shamed into giving the money back once the matter was made public.

Unlike Harvard and the L.A. Lakers, survival of the Appraisal Foundation and its paid panels is literally guaranteed in a federal statute. The statute mandates its guaranteed annual government grants. The making of the grants is part of the Appraisal Subcommittee’s charter. According to its IRS Form 990 for 2018, the most recent available, the Appraisal Foundation spent $626,000 on travel that year. (If past years are any measure, some of it was on international junkets for top officers and favored trustees.) It no longer has that travel expenditure due to the pandemic. The foundation also had $6.5 million in cash and publicly traded equities, according to its 2018 tax form. Why did it apply for between $150,000 and $350,000 in PPP relief?

If you now google “Appraisal Foundation” and “PPP,” the top hit is a CNN Politics site that identifies the Appraisal Foundation as a nonprofit that has applied for and received PPP funding. You can see it here. The Wall Street Journal and CNN are doing God’s work in this respect.

If you’re frustrated, here’s something you can do right away:

Email Mark Abbott, Grants Director at the Appraisal Subcommittee, at Mark@asc.gov and James Park, its Executive Director, at Jim@asc.gov and tell them you want the Appraisal Foundation’s next grant to be reduced by whatever public funding the foundation has received from the CARES Act during the pandemic and its reserves of cash and publicly traded securities. The $40 National Registry Fee paid by appraisers each year ($80 at biennial license renewal) needs to be rolled back by a commensurate amount to provide relief to appraisers during the pandemic. The waste and abuse going on at this nonprofit is being underwritten by appraisers (who are also voters and taxpayers). It needs to stop. Please cc Arthur Lindo at the Federal Reserve at arthur.lindo@frb.gov.

Best regards,



Jeremy Bagott, MAI, AI-GRS
jbagott@gmail.com


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Quid Pro Quo: The Right Candidate Got Elected And Corrupt Leadership Got To Keep Their Sham Election Maneuver

August 8, 2020 | 6:19 pm | Investigative |

Yesterday’s AI Public Airing Of The Sham Election Process was a dark day for the institution but a bright day for the good guys. The actual selection of Craig Steinley after he won the national nominating committees’ endorsement took literally thousands of members to apply pressure to the BoD. Thankfully it worked.

However, in order to enable the Board of Directors to do the right thing, they got to keep the sham petition process in place. Membership will have to go through this all over again next year and every year that Jim Amorin stays as CEO. Look for Tankersley to shame himself again next year.

The feedback I received from membership who watched this carnival was patently negative. The Board of Directors meeting came across as disorganized, tech-averse, and embarrassing. At the moment, they have shown they are clearly not our industry’s leader.

The presentations by Tankersley and Steinley couldn’t have been more different.

Tankersley

First, Tankersley’s bloviating about how tight he is with the board was really awful. I still can’t get over that someone with his credentials doesn’t appear to have any shame for agreeing to be a player in the sham petition process. It’s only purpose is to overrule the vetting by the NNC so that Amorin can get his lackey’s in. At no time in the five weeks, I’ve been chronicling this debacle has AI Leadership provided a specific reason for the need for this sham petition process.

Here were a few nuggets from this Amorin lackey.

“Times like this bring out the best in people or the worst in people” LOL

“Open your eyes to what the possibilities are for this organization” LOL

How embarrassing.

Tankersley emphasized he is a team builder which is obviously false for the fact he is a candidate in this sham election process. He wants to expand the education delivery yet that ship has sailed. He wants to examine the financial structure to which I ask, why? The whole purpose of this sham election is to keep the yes-men like him in the pipeline so they can travel first class with wives, friends, and family around the world. The lack of ethics here is absolutely unconscionable.

It should be noted that Tankersley criticized Steinley directly which revealed that he is not a teambuilder. The feedback has been that the Execs/BOD gave him pure softball questions so he could answer them and even with that, he was cringe-worthy.

Steinley

Why bother going into details? The man was relaxed and the consummate professional. His performance was clearly proof as to why he was selected by NNC over Tankersley. He is what the Appraisal Institute needs to finally get AI National moving in the right direction.

Steinley was announced as the winner by the Appraisal Institute yesterday:


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The Previous Victim Of The Appraisal Institute Sham Election Maneuver Shares What Happened

July 25, 2020 | 5:25 pm | Explainer |

This post previously appeared in the July 24, 2020 edition of Housing Notes. I’ve been writing these weekly summaries on housing topics for more than five years. To subscribe for free, you can sign up here. Then you can look forward to each issue every Friday at 2pm New York Time.


Here’s a shoutout to Jim Amorin and Leslie Sellers as you are reading this right now – – here’s a refresher on Appraisal Institute history…

Like Craig Steinley, the 2007 victim of the unethical petition process I’ve covered over the previous two weeks, Anne L. Johnson was selected by the nominating committee to be Vice President after being vetted against a number of candidates. This sham petition process was implemented to get Leslie Sellers (he voted for himself after not making the cut with the nominating committee) on track to later become President and then led AI to exit TAF without a legitimate explanation – it caused me to quit and accelerated the deterioration of the once-great organization, essentially screwing its own membership by fostering its growing irrelevance.

To be clear, I want the Appraisal Institute to either thrive or get out of the way of the appraisal industry. This corrupt behavior is going to continue and the operations executives will keep overruling the voice of the membership, so that leadership can keep enjoying high pay and expensive perks, inappropriate to an organization that has lost a third of its membership over the decade, a steeper decline than credentialed U.S. appraisers. There is one thing they are doing now that should be good for appraisers – more on that next week. But any good continues to be overshadowed by current behavior that is corrosive to organizational credibility.

Unless this petition process is removed from the bylaws, the deterioration in credibility will continue.

To current Board Members, please pick one:

Are you:

A. simply sheep that sit on the board to pad your resume and remain afraid to make any move that gets the operational executives mad? or
B. an industry leader who knows right from wrong and can see the corruption right in front of you and are willing to do something about it to rebuild long-term organization integrity?

But I digress again…

Anne L. Johnson lays the situation out in her July 21, 2020 note that was sent in support of Craig Steinley, the current (only legitimate) nominating committee choice. I’m sure all board members are aware of this dark moment in Appraisal Institute history more than a decade ago and now is the time to start asking questions and demonstrate integrity. Fingers crossed.


So I’ve made my case. Now here is how members of the Appraisal Institute can take action NOW.

A plan of action has been laid out professionally by the North Texas Chapter and is not being critical of the Board of Directors.

Clicking on the image will take you to the CALL TO ACTION web site.


[click on image to go to the CALL TO ACTION link]

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The Appraisal Institute Has Missed The Opportunity To Come Clean With Its Members

July 13, 2020 | 9:35 am | Investigative |

This post previously appeared in the July 10, 2020 edition of Housing Notes. I’ve been writing these weekly summaries on housing topics for more than five years. To subscribe for free, you can sign up here. Then you can look forward to each issue every Friday at 2pm New York Time.

______________________________________________________________

UPDATE JULY 13, 2020

The Appraisal Institute felt it was necessary to write a letter to respond to my original July 3rd post: The Appraisal Institute Ignores Its Membership For Third Time In Sham Election Maneuver. Their response letter was surprisingly amateur and showed how little they respect their membership. Read on.


UPDATE JULY 16, 2020

I have just been told that Michael Tankersley did NOT serve on this year’s Nominating Committee. He was a candidate for the Vice President position. The note below has been updated to reflect that.


Although Steinley was the – SOLE – duly vetted and selected candidate of the nominating committee, somehow the board had to go through a secret, 6-out-of-24 “process” to place Tankersley back onto the ballot after not being the selection of the nominating committee. Why?

The Appraisal Institute at a crossroads. To all those who have nothing to hide, hide nothing. The sham petition process was hidden from the Appraisal Institute’s membership. In response to my initial call out of this sham election process last week, the Appraisal Institute attempted slip this by membership using a highly disrespectful “fogging” letter from the current president. It insultingly omits all the critical issues that have roiled membership while rambling on and on about process and assuming the membership isn’t very smart. No matter how much they try, AI leadership behavior in this sham election process is unethical and does not serve the membership whatsoever.

Here’s a reminder to the Board of Directors: you serve the membership, no matter who you pledged your allegiance to when you signed up for this gig. Please honor your commitment to them and your commitment to honor and integrity as leaders of the industry. For at least the last decade, this once-proud organization is a shadow of its past because of self-dealing from the same people we are witnessing now. It is up to you to do the right thing and act like the leaders you can be.

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Original Post

Today, all (I assume) members of the Appraisal Insitute received a letter from current AI president Jeff Sherman, with whom I’ve met and spoken with on several occasions during his tenure and liked him and what he represented. MAI members from around the country have forwarded it to me and expressed their profound disappointment in this organization that they used to love.

Here is the consensus feedback by members who received this letter.

It just makes me sad that this is the way it is. I think many of us are a bit dumbstruck by this.

I found the letter mind-boggling and a simply attempt to fog the issue at hand. I have to assume that this was written by AI counsel because it reads like a lawyer’s writing with a little softening from other parties. I will also assume this response was directed by the current CEO in an attempt to stop the viral membership backlash of the sham election process that has rattled the organization so he can continue to control who future presidents are. So I am very confused as to why Jeff signed off on this letter since its contents contradict what I have been told by past presidents, past board members, and current members. It hurt to read it.

For now, I am going to chalk this up to “fogging” so that the actual logic gets buried in the debris. This is how lawyers do this. By the way, has anyone ever considering sending the details of this action and the past ten years of self-dealing to federal prosecutors in the Northern District of Illinois? If this is how their executives run the organization, and all the perks I keep hearing about, it makes me wonder about the state of their finances. The handling of the FMC debacle comes to mind.

But I digress.

Here is my running commentary on the letter that is presented below:

  • This sham election maneuver has not been in place since 1991 – Ask the former president who made this happen (I have the name) under oath to get Sellers on the ladder in the first place and ruin the career of a star female nominee.
  • An 11 member nominating committee gets to vet candidates recommended by the membership to review and they are charged with picking the best one and then announce it. They vetted 3 this year and picked one. It’s literally that simple.
  • The winning candidate’s name was announced by the nominating committee.

And then magically…

  • The sham maneuver was made to get the CEO’s pick inserted which should never happen.
  • Tell the membership right now why there is a second candidate.
  • I’ve been told repeatedly that a board member can vote for themselves in the petition process and as of today, some current board members are fighting like hell to keep any such votes hidden from membership, presumably so potential self-dealing will not be exposed.
  • To repeat, one person was selected by the nominating committee and two weren’t. There is no disagreement on this. Why does the CEO get to pick a candidate that was not selected to run against the person who was selected?

Why are there suddenly two nominees without any transparency? This letter does not address this point at all yet it is the entire point. The rest of the letter is faux transparency. Give the membership the actual reason there are suddenly two candidates, one picked by the nominating committee and one picked by the CEO (and that CEO-blessed candidate should be ashamed of themselves).

  • As many as 3,000 members will get to watch the 10-minute presentations of two candidates – one vetted by the nominating committee and one hand-picked by Jim Amorin. The act of showing this on video isn’t transparency at all. It’s a charade. The most deceitful part of the petition process has already occurred before the camera was turned on. There is no explanation of how the second candidate was selected.

The fogging part that is most distasteful in this letter is that it is laden with process gobblygook but contains zero transparency, something the membership is demanding right now.

Here is the closing paragraph of the letter.

I now offer to you, and to each Board member, this is not about style or personality; it must be about the best interests of the Appraisal Institute. I have supreme confidence that the trust you have placed in your elected representatives will be confirmed, regardless of the person chosen.

The problem with this closing statement is this sham election process is not being done in the best interests of the membership, but rather it is being done in the best interests of the operational executives running the show.

This is truly a sad day for the Appraisal Institute. If the board does not fight for the rights of the membership and respect the selection process, then the organization as we know it is just a monarchy, largely like when it began to be a decade ago with the same cast of characters.

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Some Financial Institutions Care About The Safety Of Appraisers, While Most Do Not

March 18, 2020 | 10:08 pm | Investigative |


[Johns Hopkins University]

As co-owner of an appraisal firm for 34 years, while based in Manhattan, we generally don’t drive to appraisal inspections. Our staff relies on public transportation to get around including buses, subways, and commuter rail. I’d been following the coronavirus in the news since early this year, and became quite alarmed by mid-February and soon suggested my staff work remotely. By the time the first Fed rate cut was made in response to the coronavirus on March 3, we adopted a screening process for appraisal inspections. When our team made an appointment for the inspection, we inquired about the health of the occupant, and then on the day of the inspection, the appraiser called again to confirm that conditions had not changed.

Soon after we learned that we could be carriers of the virus without knowing and infect someone vulnerable, we stop performing interior inspections.

My appraiser colleagues around the country have become very concerned, if not plain scared.

Here are two scenarios shared by appraiser colleagues in another part of the country. Imagine if the appraiser was a carrier?

Scenario 1 Conversation
Sounds good 10 am is better
Kids are home
With no school
If your sic with a cold or similar please reset appointment

Scenario 2 Recap
Borrower is elderly and on a respirator
Says the appraiser can walk through the house by himself
And reminds the appraiser to keep their distance

Appraisers should not be placed in harm’s way or be in a position to be forced to unintentionally harm another.

So let’s look at some industry actions of the past few days:

HEROES

These lenders have shown how much they respect the appraiser’s role in the mortgage process and their concern for the appraiser’s health and welfare as well as the borrower.

First Republic Bank
I submitted a temporary driveby appraisal solution to First Republic Bank, a large CA/NYC+ lender we have worked with since 1999. I feared for the safety of our appraisal staff and didn’t want to risk infecting others. Plus we were starting to get pushback from homeowners who are getting uncomfortable. They embedded this solution within days. I challenge any appraiser to name any other bank that is more professional, more appraiser-centric than they are. Here is the note they sent out to their panel.


Citibank
We’ve been working for Citibank since 1986 and have enjoyed a great relationship. This policy treats appraisers as human beings. I’m not sure how closely this policy will be observed by the AMCs they engage to manage their appraisals orders (read-on).


ZEROES (AMCS, etc.)


To combat the COVID-19 outbreak in the appraisal industry, Appraisal Management Companies (third-party institutional middlemen that account for as much as 90% of residential assignments) have essentially provided a lethal magnanimous gesture by simply telling appraisers to wash their hands often and stay away from people that are sick and that they must go inside the property. While I anticipate that many AMCs would defend their position of placing appraisers in harm’s way because their bank clients require it, I say that indicates selective morality or incredible ignorance. They could push back and make a strong case for public safety.

We are in the early stages of a global pandemic that may infect 100 million Americans (1 out of 3, conservatively) with a 3% death rate (that’s 1 million people if you do the math). The appraiser population has an average age in the high-50s, and we have been told that the older populous is the most vulnerable.

In reality, these AMC policies show disdain not only to appraisers but to their own (bank client’s) borrowers by letting a fee appraiser, who is paid only for the assignments they accept, determine whether or not the appraisers themselves are carriers of this pandemic and whether they can assess the safety of the property they inspect. Here’s a key point.

NO ONE CAN TELL IF SOMEONE IS A CARRIER IF THEY HAVE NO SYMPTOMS.

The following AMCs opted to treat appraisers as a widget instead of a human being requiring them to physically inspect a property when they now know that it is not safe to do so. Today I was told that one federal agency lost 20% of their appraisers because they have refused to continue doing interior inspections. Different cities and states have different rates of infection. Because we don’t have full testing in place as a country, the number of infections might be significantly higher than we might anticipate. My particular location in Manhattan is highly problematic because of the reliance on public transportation – buses, subways, commuter rail, and just walking down a crowded street – no social-distancing here. And based on the comments the NYC Mayor made yesterday, it is possible that tomorrow could see NYC restricted to “shelter in place” like San Francisco.

If you’ll note in this pattern of negligent behavior, great efforts were made to plan for the safety of order staff, but no regard for the safety of the appraiser, who is providing the service – telling appraisers to wash their hands and practice social-distancing when they know that it is not enough. When you get right down to it, these companies sent similar silly instructions so they can check off a box to be compliant. Yet they must know that appraisers could be carriers, and occupants in the property could be carriers. This is not business as usual.

When we pushed back the appointment on a few of our AMC clients for safety concerns, they simply took away the assignment and rescheduled with another appraiser. No human contact to assess the risk. In good conscience, even if the new appraiser doesn’t have symptoms or doesn;t think the occupant does, that AMC or lender is placing the public at risk, going directly against CDC guidelines. This is what robots would do.


Here is a sampling of AMCs that provided COVID-19 instructions in the past few days shared by my appraisal colleagues – this is clear evidence that they see appraisers as widgets instead of human beings. To save you the trouble of reading all of these INSTRUCTIONS, here’s the translation: WASH YOUR HANDS A LOT

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Manhattan Co-op Sales Fall During Federal Election Year

February 5, 2020 | 3:52 pm | | Charts |

For the past decade, I’ve been observing a pullback in sales in the summer of an election year and then a release in sales after the election into the new year, no matter the party or the candidate. I was speaking about this to Sylvia Varnham O’Regan at The Real Deal Magazine, and she asked me to prove it empirically.

So I did.

Her article: This is how presidential elections really affect home sales lays it out for the Manhattan market.

My methodology:

  • The data set was co-op based because they account for 74% of the apartment market and doesn’t have the wild fluctuation of contract versus closing date because of condo new development lags.
  • We don’t have all the contract dates for co-ops, but for those we do, they have been remarkably consistent at around 90 days. That 90-day average was applied to all the closing dates to reverse-engineer contract dates.
  • Contracts for even and odd years were compared: Even years represented federal election years, including midterms.

The results compared federal election years to non-federal election years, finding that beginning in June of an election year, sales were progressively weaker than their non-election year counterpart. The most significant difference occurred in September during an election year with a 12.7% weaker sales market than a non-election year. Beginning in November during an election year, sales overpower their non-election year counterpart, with the release of pent-up demand occurring well into the following spring.

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The Proposed NYC “Pied-A-Terre Tax” Looks Catastrophic to NYC Real Estate

March 19, 2019 | 11:48 pm | Investigative |

An earlier version of this post appeared in my weekly Housing Notes, March 15, 2019 edition. I’ve since added more information and insights as the situation unfolds.

This proposed NYC “pied-a-terre” tax law has a name that infers it concerns “pied-a-terres” when in fact that property type is but one part of the property types that are impacted. I’m sorry about the length of this piece but please read on.

The New York state political zeitgeist was recently and suddenly tilted against luxury development in New York City. If this latest turn of events plays out as written, we’ll be able to look back at this era as a milestone where the supertanker began to turn in the wrong direction for the new development multi-family industry.

The White Paper That Started It All

The Fiscal Policy Institute proposed the tax in 2014, and it has been floating around Albany ever since. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the fiscally conservative Citizens Budget Commission described the tax as appealing but problematic:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office suggested last week that such a levy might reap $9 billion for the moribund Metropolitan Transportation Authority over the next decade and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie reiterated his chamber’s support proposal at a Crain’s breakfast forum days later. Mayor Bill de Blasio gave it his blessing as well.

In the original 2014 proposal by the Fiscal Policy Institute, the first item in the proposal is off to a bad start as they describe what happened in the market:

These owners bid up the price of NYC residential real estate, and since they don’t spend much time in these units, contribute little to the local economy compared to full-time residents.

Wrong. A large swath of high-end condo market activity of the past five years are non-primary residences which include pieds-a-terres but most are investor purchases that are subsequently rented after the unit closes when construction was completed. The majority of new development units purchased as non-primary were rented out which is why the high-end rental market was crushed by all the new development condo sales by investors. Renters in these units do spend and help drive the local economy. Manhattan is about 75% rental by unit and New York City is about 2/3 rental by unit. It is therefore clear that renters drive a large swath of the NYC economy. Why would renters of high-end apartments be any different than all renters? They eat, sleep, work, and consume. FPI’s apparent belief that most of the high-end development sold ended up as empty pied-a-terres while wealthy buyers bid up the prices is incorrect. This position seems to be derived from one of only two references cited in the FPI white paper, a fun New York Magazine cover story by Andrew Rice. That article came out in 2014 right as the housing market was peaking. The strengthening dollar was cooling demand via international currency plays and the sight of cranes rising everywhere told buyers that an oversupply was here (that still exists today with over 6 years of excess new development product. I was one of the resources for Andrew Rice’s piece and here I explain what happened leading up to the 2014 condition which I later dubbed “Peak Luxury” and “Peak New Development”.

Much of this speculation is being driven by two factors: sparse supply, due to the absorption of the inventory left over from the last boom, and fast-rising prices. Manhattan saw a 30 percent price increase over the past year, on average, which market analyst Jonathan Miller attributes primarily to sales closing in ultraluxury buildings. The highest end of the market has seen stunning inflation.

In other words, the 30 percent price rise wasn’t a “bid up” by wealthy buyers; it was a massive shift in the type of housing stock that was being created and sold. New building materials and engineering enabled 100 story buildings instead of 50 story buildings. Landowners factored this into land prices since many buildings above the 50th floor had expansive open views and (not enough) buyers were willing to pay for it. Prices rose significantly in lower-priced segments (below $5 million) because supply was static and no match for a rising population and the city’s record job growth.

Developers are in the business of developing, and land prices remained high after the housing bubble burst a decade ago because of the large amount of money that was flooding into development. Central banks worldwide pressed rates to zero, creating an army of global investors chasing higher returns. To keep developing despite all this new capital, developers had to build what land prices required, high-end real estate. Developers would create affordable housing if it realized a higher return on the risk they take on. While it has always been difficult and expensive to build in New York City, the post-financial crisis was especially challenging with heavy competition for labor, materials, and land, exacerbated by free-flowing global capital in a low-interest-rate world.

Now the buyers of this real estate, who committed to New York City, are being punished by this new tax, the result of which will damage the city’s global brand that took 25 years to evolve. Why? Because a white paper with only two reference citations, one of which was a magazine article on a small niche of super-tall buildings, was the basis. I am also concerned that the paper did not address the change in consumer behavior when such taxes would be implemented. Why would they push to implement a new tax when it raises the probability that existing tax revenues will fall? To get specific here’s what happened after this article was written. The building known as One57 on the cover of the cited New York Magazine story – 5 years later and after 8 years on the market is 25% unsold and resale activity (the same unit purchased from the sponsor and then sold again) shows as much as a 30% drop in prices since this article was written.

This drop is why I think that the implementation of this new tax as written will be catastrophic to the market, potentially causing it to seize up. As a result, the city would see a significant drop in transfer tax and other associated revenues before considering the new tax. Hit a declining market with more than 6 years of excess supply with a new high tax out of the blue and watch what happens.

The Political Timeline

The shift in New York State and New York City government sentiment against real estate development began with the following recent events:

The proposed law is in each New York State Albany chamber right now and although they have different introduction dates of January 9, 2019 (Senate) and February 4, 2019 (Assembly) they look the same.

The New York State Assembly version: Assembly Bill A4540 or in this format.

The New York State Senate version: Senate Bill S44 or in this format.

The bills are short on details and are currently in committee, wide open for interpretation. As written, the bill is both sweeping and ominous to the real estate industry in New York City, and I expect it will result in less overall tax revenue to the city than currently enjoyed. I’ll get into that further on.

How this proposed S44/A4540 tax seems to work

I am not a tax advisor, and anything I say here should not be relied on, and you should seek appropriate counsel. Seriously. I am merely interpreting what I think are the critical issues established this proposed tax.

  • This tax directed is specifically at New York City because it is designated for cities in the state with populations of more than 1 million. As evidenced by the 2010 census data in Wikipedia, there is a significant population difference between New York City and Buffalo.

You probably think of the market value of your co-op or condo as the price you could sell it for on the open market. However, State law requires us to value residential cooperative and condominium buildings as if they were rental apartment buildings. This means that we look at the income and expense statements of rental buildings that have similar characteristics to determine your condo or co-op buildings market value.

  • It taxes residential properties valued at $5 million and above in NYC, most of which are in Manhattan.
    • And it is a marginal rate tax – only the amount above each threshold is taxed.


    • And it is a property tax which means it will be paid annually, not just upon sale like the Mansion tax. Here is how consumer behavior is impacted by the $1 million threshold of the New York State “Mansion” tax. I did this a while ago, and the pattern still exists. As an annual property tax, the dollar thresholds will be more firm.

  • The tax is not really about pied-a-terres. It is a tax on non-primary residences as written.

Therefore it should apply to investor units and LLCs.

I don’t think it is unreasonable to assume that the language of the bill infers that LLCs could be interpreted as “non-primary residences” even if they are used for primary residences since New York State defines LLCs: An LLC is an unincorporated business organization made up of one or more persons. That definition does not sound like a primary residence to me.

Although the working title of the proposed tax is “pied-a-terre” there is no mention of this particular use in the Senate or Assembly tax bills. They specifically refer to “non-primary residences” so that would include other uses like investor units and possibly LLCs (possibly even those used as primary residences). It’s all still up in the air at this point.

From the New York Times article of March 11, 2019: Lawmakers Support ‘Pied-à-Terre’ Tax on Multimillion-Dollar Second Homes

In 2017, New York City had 75,000 pieds-à-terre, up from 55,000 such units since 2014, according to the New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey. The share of vacant apartments that are classified as pieds-à-terre has held steady during that time at about 30 percent.

From the New York Times article of October 26, 2014: Pied-à-Neighborhood

“If you said you are going to impose a special surcharge on apartments that are worth more than $20 million, that would be perfectly legal,” said Peter L. Faber, a partner at McDermott Will & Emery. “But the problem comes when you start imposing a special tax on nonresidents. That is unconstitutional under the interstate commerce clause.”
The current revenue estimation appears overstated by nearly a third

The bill’s sponsor, New York State Senator Brad Hoylman said:

There are only 5,400 units in New York above $5 million that are owned by non-residents.

For the year 2018 my ACRIS search yielded 952 residential single units sales (1-3 family, co-ops, condos) above the $5 million threshold (1,188 in 2016 and 1,173 in 2017).


I will assume that the Senator included all the apparent nuances within the 5,400 count for the entire NYC housing stock (pied-a-terres, investor units, LLC-owned primary and non-primary residences).

I projected this mix of sales as proportional to the 5,400 units impacted by the new law to break out the tax revenue calculations, understanding the 2018 sales included both primary and non-primary residential uses.


[click to expand]

From the New York Times article of March 11, 2019: Lawmakers Support ‘Pied-à-Terre’ Tax on Multimillion-Dollar Second Homes

It was not immediately clear how much money the tax would raise; the office of the city comptroller, Scott M. Stringer, estimated that a pied-à-terre tax would bring in a minimum of $650 million annually if enacted today. And based on the expected revenue stream, Mr. Cuomo estimated that the state could then raise $9 billion in bonds, backed by the expected taxes paid by pied-à-terre owners.

Based on my calculations, the tax-impacted housing stock would yield tax revenue of roughly $455,000,000 which is about 30% below the $650,000,000 estimate assuming this new tax would not impact any current consumer behavior of the wealthy who would be affected by the tax… which is a GIANT assumption that is patently not true.

Impact to Housing Prices

Using the median sales price of each price traunche set up in the bill, and assuming a 5% discount rate and the median tax for each traunche and a 10 year holding period, the adverse impact to value rises in each higher traunche.

I’ve added 20-year and 30-year holding period versions using the same variables. I started out using the 10-year as a placeholder for the brokerage industry’s default assumption of 7 years for homeownership but then added 3 more years to account for the current market slide. The 20 and 30-year holding periods assumptions might be more realistic given the long term view of investors after the decline in prices of the past several years and the phenomenon of capital preservation in this latest development frenzy since 2012. If that’s the case, properties valued at $25 million or higher might lose 30% of their value overnight…not factoring in a market pause or even collapse in sales until the terms are ironed out. That period of uncertainty starts now through July 1, 2020.


[click to expand]

More New Yorkers Will Leave The City

From the New York Times article of March 11, 2019: Lawmakers Support ‘Pied-à-Terre’ Tax on Multimillion-Dollar Second Homes

Moses Gates, a vice president at the Regional Plan Association, disputed the notion that New Yorkers would leave the city. The association believes that most wealthy pied-à-terre owners would pay the tax. If they chose to sell, then the property has the chance of being purchased by a full-time city resident, who would then be subject to income and sales tax.

It is already happening. His assumption does not take into consideration the new federal tax law enacted on January 1, 2018, that was especially punishing the wealthy real estate property owners that were already considering moving their domicile to a low tax state like Florida. The wealthy who already were on the fence before the new law are now beginning to make their moves. You can see this happening in Florida right now. New Yorkers are the new foreign buyer there. This proposed pied-a-terre tax piles on to the fresh new federal taxes just served to wealthy property owners in NYC metro last year, and sales were already slowing.

Taxing Wealthy Property Owners Around the World

The trend of raising tax revenue on real estate of the wealthy is gaining momentum worldwide. New York City had the distinction of being one of the few major global cities that have not implemented taxes that are openly hostile to foreign buyers or investors. Here is what some countries are doing to tax these buyers and it is slowing sales.

From the New York Times article of February 9, 2019:

Large cities around the world have been grappling with how to make wealthy absentee property owners pay for the privilege of owning secondary residences, a recent report from the Real Estate Institute of British Columbia shows. Sydney, Paris, and London have all recently added or increased taxes on the purchase of secondary homes.

In Hong Kong, nonpermanent residents pay a 15 percent fee on the value of the home, and foreigners pay an additional 15 percent fee. Singapore has restrictions on the purchase of residential property by foreigners and a 15 percent tax. In Denmark, foreigners are required to obtain permission from the government to purchase secondary homes.

In Vancouver, where the greatest concentration of vacant properties is downtown, owners of empty residential properties are charged a 1 percent tax based on the assessed value.
Why Senate Bill S44/Assembly Bill A4540 Will Not Achieve Its Intended Goal As Found Money for MTA Improvements
  • This bill may obliterate future transfer tax revenue from real estate activity and could result in lower net receipts from the real estate sector in the aftermath. The 2014 whitepaper doesn’t consider this but instead presents the tax in a vacuum as if market forces don’t respond.
  • New York City is one of the last “international cities” that is not hostile to foreign buyers and real estate investors
  • The new tax is targeted to condo development since there are few co-op and townhouse non-primary units over $5M
  • The new tax will crush new development activity because land prices will take years, maybe even more than a decade to reset to levels that will support new affordable housing because landowners take long-term buy and hold positions
  • This tax could destroy any progress made with inclusionary zoning to create more affordable housing
  • This tax will not create more affordable housing
  • The idea of the building of “bank safety deposit boxes in the sky” and saying pied-a-terre owners don’t spend money in the city is misleading. Most of the taxed units have occupants that do just that. Many non-primary residences are occupied with renters and those occupants spend money on a daily basis. The actual pied-a-terre segment is a subset of non-primary residences
  • Aspects of this bill might be illegal such as the disconnect in valuation methods to calculate property taxes versus this new tax – state law requires co-op/condos to be valued as income properties and this new law wants the sales comparison approach
  • Luxury real estate buyers do not ignore new taxes as is commonly pontificated. That never happens and I’m not sure where that form of conventional wisdom came from. As such there will be substantial damage to high-end property values going forward, perhaps as much as 30% if not more than that. With the news of this new tax, we expose the market to a panic selloff as existing owners look to take their lumps and get out as new sales pause.
  • The damage to the housing market above the $5 million threshold will not be contained and will likely melt into the layers below it as market stigma expands.
  • The suburban markets, as key competitors to NYC in the immediate area, may actually benefit within their respective high-end markets as NYCs brand damage and new tax may incentivize city buyers to look closer at alternatives in NYC suburban metro as well low-cost areas such as Florida.
Pausing the Market While Politicking

At a bare minimum, the guaranteed uncertainty of the bill’s final form from April 1, 2019 when it is enacted and July 1, 2020 when it is implemented, will help “pause” sales starting now. Sales at the top of the market will slow further than they already have. This uncertainty will have a significant impact on market participants as they wait for Albany to sort this out and will play a significant roll in impacting transfer tax revenue as the market cools further.

There is a strong political appetite for this to be part of the budget. I can only imagine the heavy volume of lobbying and litigation activity to occur between now and July 1, 2020. There is a need/hunger for more revenue by the governor and the mayor for the MTA – which will include a lot of lobbying and litigation since everyone wants a piece of this. Unfortunately, the Real Estate Board of New York does not have clout in Albany political circles but they appear to be working hard to reduce the damage this bill will cause to new development (with a by-product of reducing the loss of existing tax revenues). Whatever happens to this bill, it will probably damage the credibility of the bill’s author, the Fiscal Policy Institute who will learn that market forces do matter and policy should never be considered in a vacuum.

On a positive note, present circumstances included, the impact of this tax bill is so over the top and disconnected from market forces that I would expect the lawsuits and negotiation to be significant and improve the odds this bill will be converted into something less catastrophic. The Senator who is sponsoring this has seemed to suggest this in interviews.

History Fades and so do Lessons Learned

Remember the 1970s version of New York City? The success the city is enjoying now was the result of 25 years of proactive management of city spending and branding efforts. Besides record tourism, real estate activity has been revitalized and that has brought billions of dollars to the city coffers. The introduction of this new tax law ignores human behavior and assumes the tax revenues will rise as if market forces don’t exist. The wealthy will not shrug off these heavy new costs. They will simply go elsewhere. New real estate taxes, especially significant ones, change consumer behavior almost immediately.

If the objective is to punish the high-end housing market and the development community, then this bill will do that. If the objective is to generate new tax revenue for MTA, it won’t. In fact, I believe it will cannibalize existing related tax revenue streams after all the mayhem it causes to the new development industry.

Let’s hope economically informed voices are able to make themselves heard during this process.

I’ll be providing additional insights on this important and developing issue in my weekly Housing Notes. You can sign up for free right here.

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Remember liar loans of a decade ago? Those same people want to do away with appraisers.

November 30, 2018 | 10:12 am | Investigative |

My friend and appraisal colleague Ryan Lundquist and I authored a petition on change.org to point out the growing wreckless behavior that is enveloping the mortgage process.

There’s a proposal from the FDIC, Federal Reserve, and Treasury Department not to require appraisals for some mortgages under $400,000.

As we say in the petition, this change can impact several groups in particular: consumers, the taxpayers, the housing market and appraisers.

One group not explicitly mentioned in the petition but impacted down the road are real estate agents and brokers. Currently, 12% of mortgages that flow through the GSE (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac account for 78% of residential mortgages right now) will have their appraisals waived. Those are “PiW” loans or have a “Property Inspection Waiver.” My good friend and appraiser colleague Phil Crawford says on his radio show “Voice of Appraisal” says the acronym stands for “Pissing In Wind” which is more accurate. If the buyer realizes they overpaid for the property, the agents are now the professionals with the bullseye on their back. Liability insurers are already talking about a new target when things go south.

Years ago and again this morning, I heard a real estate agent say – what do we need you (appraisers) for? “The seller and the buyer determined the market value by agreeing on the price.” The problem with this logic is the buyer may not be fully informed (i.e., from an out of market area) and will also mortgage fraud supercharged. Ever heard of straw buyers? Agents must remember that they perceived as biased even with the best intentions and the best ethics because they are paid only if the deal closes. When something goes wrong, they are completely exposed.

The direction that was taken by regulators relies heavily on AVMs (Think Zillow’s Zestimate which is not within 4.3% of the actual value 50% of the time) and “hybrid appraisers” (which removes the appraiser from the actual inspection of properties) to develop a value opinion. The inspection of the property, when done, will rely on non-licensed individuals to fill out a checklist and give an appraiser at a desk the information without any standardization, direct contact or assurance the inspector knows what they are doing. I’ve heard of fees as low as $8 to do the inspection and $78 for the appraiser. As far as I can tell, a full appraisal (inspection and analysis) cost can represent as little as a hundredth of a percent of a purchase transaction.

This petition is for everyone to sign, not just appraisers. Please sign and help bring attention to a pattern we just lived through in the financial crisis. It’s happening again.

Please make your voice known, read about and hopefully sign the petition below:

PETITION: Remember liar loans of a decade ago? Those same people want to do away with appraisers.

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Bloomberg TV – Housing Related Issues in Final Version of the Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017

December 27, 2017 | 9:07 pm | | Investigative |

Today I joined Joe Weisenthal and Julie Hyman on Bloomberg TV’s “Bloomberg Markets” for a discussion on the impact to the U.S. Housing Market in the aftermath of the new Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017 that was signed into law by the president on December 22, 2017.

Here are about 2 minutes of the 5-minute interview:

Back on December 14, 2017, I provided a summary of the proposed tax bill comparing the House and Senate versions. The bills were merged into committee and signed by the president into law on December 22, 2017, effective January 1, 2018.

You can download my housing summary regarding the final version of the new tax law [pdf].

Fun side note: Here’s the stock photo of me that Bloomberg uses whenever I appear on television or radio. In this case, its projected about 15′ tall for TV. It’s a picture Bloomberg took of me about 14 years ago – circa 2003. I look like I’m in high school. I guess that shows how long I’ve been a regular contributor.

UPDATE to fun side note Someone just shared my current bio photo on the Bloomberg Terminals taken about 20 years ago.

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How the GOP Tax Bill Might Impact U.S. Residential Real Estate

December 14, 2017 | 5:49 pm | Investigative |

[UPDATE: The impact of the tax bill changed after it came out of committee and became law on December 22nd, 2017. See an updated tax law impact summary here.]

Both houses of Congress have passed far-reaching tax bills with a lot of common ground between them. The U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives are in the process of merging their versions into a single bill that will be voted on, and if it gets out of committee, it will be submitted to the president for signing.

Unlike the 1986 tax reform bill, which took six months of public hearings and discussion on both sides of the aisle, this tax bill was worked on for a year by the GOP and was passed very quickly without most of the signers knowing what was actually in it. Therefore I anticipate an ongoing procession of additional insights that impact the housing market as more people read the bills or the eventual law.

This lack of transparency and vetting alone is not great news for housing, which is very dependant on an “uncertainty-free” environment. In addition, there is a “get it done before Christmas” deadline.

Here is what I mapped out but this is only what we think we know by reading many interpretations with source links presented at the bottom of the table below. Here’s the pdf version of the table.

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Appraisal Institute Membership Falls Sharply As ASC Registry Levels Off

August 24, 2017 | 6:56 pm | Investigative |

In the latest mid year numbers for Appraisal Institute membership, 15,000 members have paid their dues as of May 31, 2017. That’s 3,000 less than this year’s projected 18,000 total on their web site. AI National forecasted a 700 member drop in membership for 2017.

In all fairness, AI National could see additional sign-ups but this will be tempered by the now spirited debates surrounding their governance proposal. The key issue in front of the organization now is the “taking” policy where they announced their plans to take chapter funds last fall. This was largely done without advanced warning or membership input and their recent governance committee came up with a similar recommendation.

I assume the faster decline in membership occurred because of all the unknowns with AI National’s future or actual survival in the short term.

In the following chart, I matched up the current ASC registry totals with AI membership through the middle of the year (May for AI National and July for ASC).

Since the financial crisis, AI membership dropped by one-third while the appraisal industry fell 20.8%. The latter makes sense given the housing bubble peaked a decade ago. In what reality does a trade group’s leadership get a pass when their membership falls faster than the industry they claim to be leading?

An URGENT request to my readers: I have only been able to verify AI membership totals back to 2007 and a 25,000 total for 1995. If you have any annual membership totals by year prior to 2007, it would be greatly appreciated. I would keep the source anonymous. I am interested in comparing the AI membership trend since 1992 when the ASC registry data begins.

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