Tennis Love And Housing

July 31, 2020

Sometimes, we all need a break…set…match…and love.

This is going to be an appraisal-heavy issue of Housing Notes today…

But I digress…

THE CON Documentary Goes Live On August 5th at 8PM EDT

This 5-part series tells the full story of the housing crash and the appraisal industry gets to tell their side for the first time. Here’s the trailer for THE CON. Please mark your calendars!

True or False: the homelessness problem in California is only because of Big Tech and a surge in drug use?  False! Massive foreclosure and evictions following 2008 are one of the biggest contributors. Join the Aug. 5 global live premiere + Q&A: thecon.tv/event @theconseries

NPR: Housing Numbers Show Strength But The Economy Is Struggling

From one of my favorite regular podcasts: The Indicator: The Coronavirus Housing Boom

Pushing ‘Coprimary Homes’ Into The Housing Lexicon

My friend Mike Simonsen, founder of Altos Research, continues to try to get me into the Urban Dictionary with my phrase “Co-Primary.” Click on the following tweet for the thread and a lot of other suggestions for the phrase.

Mike’s Altos Research metrics seem to confirm that it is a pattern we are seeing now in the housing market.

Appraiserville

(For earlier appraisal industry commentary, visit my old clunky REIC site.)

Please Donate to the Ryan Lundquist Go Fund Me Effort If You Can

Appraisal Institute Is Opening Their Sham Election Process For Us To See The 2 VP Candidates Present

The following note was sent out yesterday by the Appraisal Institute. Their new effort seems to be an attempt to misdirect that AI National overruled the publicly announced candidate Craig Steinley (vetted by the National Nominating Committee (NNC)) in a sham petition process. Michael Tankersley was not the nominating committee choice but now, somehow, he is on equal footing with Craig Steinley despite the NNC not thinking so. Shouldn’t Tankersley be ashamed of himself? This sham self-dealing election to keep Jim Amorin in power is unethical and morally wrong. This now officially broken organization thinks that its membership will assume that operational executives are being transparent by sharing this event with the public. The decision has already been made and this is just theatre, as I have chronicled in prior posts. You can catch up on all of it here. I hope the Board of Directors does the right thing and votes for the NNC choice and not become responsible for AI National’s further demise.

___________________________________________
The Appraisal Institute Board of Directors will hold an election for the 2021 vice president during the morning session of its third quarter meeting Aug. 6 and host a general open session in the afternoon. Registration is open for both meetings.

The meeting will begin at 9 a.m. CDT, and the vice president nominees will make their presentations to the Board at the start. Once the presentations have concluded, the Board will go into Executive Session. AI professionals who have registered to attend this meeting will be able to rejoin it at approximately noon CDT for the election of the vice president.

AI professionals must register for all meetings they wish to attend. If you wish to attend the vice president presentations and election beginning at 9 a.m. CDT and the general open session beginning at approximately 1 p.m. CDT, you will need to register for both. Please note that space is limited.

Register to attend the vice president presentations and election.

Register to attend the afternoon general session.

You will receive a confirmation email with your own unique link to join a session once you have registered.

________________________________________________

AI Professionals with Past Service as Directors of the Appraisal Institute Show Support For Craig Steinley

This July 29, 2020 letter was written from AI Professionals with Past Service as Directors of the Appraisal Institute to express their support for Craig Steinley, the only vetted and selected candidate by the nominating committee. They give many reasons for their support of Craig, but this one stood out to me:

The current petition is even more damaging and detrimental to the nominee and the organization because, for the first-time ever, it is cloaked in anonymity and secrecy. And, it is diminishing, rather than enhancing, our external image and influence at a time when other far-reaching issues demand the Board’s attention and action.

Here is the letter [PDF].

ASC Extends the North Dakota Waiver for Another Year

This week the Appraisal Subcommittee voted to extend the North Dakota waiver for another year with a 6 to 1 vote. The overarching reason to extend was because of the COVID outbreak prevented them from meeting in person this year. HUD was the only agency to take issue with this and I have to say I agree with their reasoning. North Dakota had 7 months to come up with a solution before COVID hit. I’m not taking ASC to task on this though because there is some validity to the COVID excuse.

My assumption is that there is no solution beyond simple economics. North Dakota is largely a rural state and the economics of inadequate fees make it very difficult to have timely coverage. This is a challenge across all rural markets yet North Dakota claims they are different and were unable to come up with why and how to solve it over seven months. And that’s because this is purely a political ploy for the ND banking lobby who got the governor to opt-in because the banks don’t want to pay market rates for appraisals. Well, that’s not how the economy works. Prediction: 1 year from now North Dakota still won’t have a solution and they won’t get an extension.

The Appraisal Foundation Seems To Be Claiming They Don’t Need Oversight?

There was an email passed around by Jeremy Bagott recently about the TAF’s collection of PPP funds that caught my attention. Bagott, the author of “Dispatches from the Cosmic Cobra Breeding Farm” that came out earlier this year was essentially a takedown of the Appraisal Foundation (TAF) via “incorporation by reference.” Initially, I was intrigued when the book came out but the author came across too strong on Dave Bunton’s compensation to which TAF responded and it took a lot of the wind out of the sails of the book marketing process.

The author sent the following email about the TAF acceptance of PPP money which seemed problematic to me, especially since all the meeting travel is not occurring right now because of the pandemic.

Bagott’s recent email made me concerned so I opted to surf the ASC web site (hey, I also watch C-SPAN in my free time) and I stumbled across two documents posted in July:

2020.07.01 – EML and attachments from J. Park to TAF – ASC Monitor and Review of TAF Guide and Policy

2020.07.16 – TAF Response to ASC Monitoring and Review Policy Guide_Redacted

The first was an email from ASC Executive Director Jim Park, providing a practical guide to TAF on what they will be looking for. After all the ASC is the link between Congress and TAF and ASC is responsible for TAF’s oversight. This is clearly and succinctly outlined in Title XI.

Here’s the summary page of Title XI on the ASC web site as it relates to the relationship between ASC and TAF.

(b) Monitoring and reviewing Foundation. The Appraisal Subcommittee shall monitor and
review the practices, procedures, activities, and organizational structure of the Appraisal
Foundation.

Here’s Jim Park’s July 1st email.

I bring all this up because of what I read after the Jim Park email.

TAF is strongly pushing back with the argument that “monitor and review” do not equal “oversight.” In other words, they are saying that Congress created TAF to be on its own and not be accountable for its actions to the public/taxpayer/consumer yet they set the standards for valuation across the U.S.

Here’s the TAF letter:

This rationale really alarmed me.

The TAF opines against having oversight…

While putting safeguards in place, Congress refrained from being too
intrusive into the operations of the private, non-profit organization by limiting the
federal government’s role to a level of “monitoring and review” instead of giving it
expanded “oversight.”

Even more distressing is that TAF gets very personal against Jim Park and his team – the reading of this following section was an out of body experience. I’ve met and spoken with Jim Park and his staff at many meetings and find everyone very professional. I’d like to see these TAF claims made under oath.

[The following in Bold, my emphasis]

Here’s an excerpt.

Over the past year, the Foundation has witnessed an increasingly heavy handed and
authoritarian approach from ASC staff while performing monitoring activities. The policy
and guide purport to ratify that approach and codify it for the future. Their unprofessional
behavior has become commonplace including:
• Giving unsolicited opinions during private work sessions about decisions the ASC
staff would like the Board to take.
• Disrupting private work sessions with ongoing chatter inappropriately laced with
expletives.
• Confronting board members at breaks during in-person meetings with veiled
threats emphasized by finger wagging.
• Making calls to Foundation board members and support staff prying into issues
unrelated to Title XI and circumventing Foundation leadership.
• Making false statements in an attempt to strong-arm Foundation decisions to
conform to staff wishes.

And look at who TAF cc’d in the letter? My goodness.

Now absorb this lecture on ASC expected conduct at the end of the letter:

When attending Foundation private meetings, sessions, or briefings,
o ASC staff shall refrain from speaking unless specifically requested to do
so by the Chair or President.
o ASC staff shall not state or imply directives.
o ASC staff shall not attempt to exert undue influence on the issues
discussed.

The tone of this letter is completely unprofessional and frankly, bizarre, yet was signed by the Board of Trustees, Leila Dunbar and TAF, David Bunton. I don’t know Leila but this letter’s tone doesn’t sound like David to me.

TAF is an organization that sets standards for appraisers nationwide and to behave this way is unacceptable. I’ll be interested to see how they navigate going forward. I think TAF’s world just got a lot more difficult.

OFT (One Final Thought)

Brilliant Idea #1

If you need something rock solid in your life (particularly on Friday afternoons) and someone forwarded this to you, or you think you already subscribed, sign up here for these weekly Housing Notes. And be sure to share with a friend or colleague if you enjoy them because:

– They’ll be more in love;
– You’ll be more like the wind;
– And I’ll be knee-deep in appraisal politics bogging our industry down .

Brilliant Idea #2

You’re obviously full of insights and ideas as a reader of Housing Notes. I appreciate every email I receive and it helps me craft the next week’s Housing Note.

See you next week.

Jonathan J. Miller, CRP, CRE, Member of RAC
President/CEO
Miller Samuel Inc.
Real Estate Appraisers & Consultants
Matrix Blog
@jonathanmiller

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