Tag Archives: Valuation

Mortgage appraisal company AppraiserLoft has closed its doors following numerous executive departures, rumors of non-payment to appraisers, and an ongoing lawsuit brought against the company's CEO regarding alleged activities unrelated to the company. According to numerous trade publications, AppraiserLoft made employees aware of the shutdown last week in advance of its official closure. Current clients are instructed to contact the company via its help-desk e-mail account.

More loan officers, underwriters, and attorneys are filing their loan documents and closing deals in a paperless environment, according to a recent survey. Xerox released a survey Wednesday that found some 61 percent of mortgage industry professionals are ditching their loan folders, logging in to online systems, and doing more business without paper. The seventh annual Path to Paperless survey revealed some 96 percent of respondents favor a workplace without paper.

Commercial real estate loans are making Wall Street headlines again. Joint financing options are becoming increasingly abundant for financial firms struggling to handle the fall out from recent volatility in the commercial mortgage-backed securities market. During the summer, yields rose steadily, increasing the need for investor protection measures. As part of events underway, Barclays CApital announced a partnership with FundCore Finance Group to conduct CMBS loans jointly.

Enhanced technology initiatives for wholesale and correspondent lenders is now available thanks to ClosingCorp's new platform. The company recently announced that it would release the SmartGFE Service, targeting streamlined processing for entities in both markets. ClosingCorp's SmartGFE product will provide instant access to RESPA-based Good Faith Estimate (GFE) data to those in the wholesale and correspondent segments.

Mortgage application volume jumped from the previous week by 6.3 percent, reflecting the highly attractive plunge by interest rates to record lows, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Even so, the good news comes amid a fall in home valuations and cash buyer interest, which Capital Economics says will likely depress sales activity across the housing market. Frank Nothaft, VP and chief economist for Freddie Mac, spoke to MReport about the forces behind anemic demand for home purchases at the Five Star Conference and Expo in Dallas.

President Barack Obama rolled out a $447 billion jobs bill and touted a major refinance proposal in a recent address, estimating that some 2.9 million homeowners could refinance their mortgages at current rates.

As of Thursday, appraisers and realtors must now use a new universal grading rubric when it comes to their assessments for properties with government-backed mortgages. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac recently revised their appraisal guidelines to streamline a sometimes unclear process, but some warn of the potential for fallout among appraisers, realtors, and homeowners unfamiliar with the new standards. Appraisers will need to weigh property values against new codes and abbreviations.

Home prices crept forward over the second quarter this year but failed to march to the same beat as prices over the same period last year, according to Standard & Poor├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬ós/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, which the ratings agency released Tuesday. The numbers reflect a still-stagnant housing economy that continues to wobble on chronically low demand, unsure consumers, and a lending crunch for otherwise creditworthy homebuyers. S&P indices revealed a steady and continuing downward slope for second-quarter home prices since 2010.

Mortgage rates continued falling to new lows, according to real estate Web site Zillow, which released rates in the latest Mortgage Marketplace note Tuesday. According to Zillow, the benchmark 30-year fixed-rate loan jumped four basis points to hit 4.07 percent Saturday, up from 4.09 percent last week. Zillow tracks mortgage rates by pooling anonymous loan quotes submitted by the 1.7 million users that it says follow its Web site on a daily basis. The Zillow rates track ongoing mortgage-rate declines reported by Bankrate and Freddie Mac.

A new mortgage lender debuts with the company announcement that First Valuation officially launches operations Tuesday. The launch signals a change from a previous name, BrokerPriceOpinion.com, under which the company ran operations for much of the last decade.