06 Jul 2010 | Interviews, Lending/Mortgage, Podcasts
I’ve known Jeff Appel for many years as one of the leading mortgage consultants and experts in the New York City metro area. Jeff is a Vice President at Bank of America Home Loans and co-host along with Cathy Hobbs of Metro Residential that airs 11am Sundays on WPIX Channel 11 in the NYC metro area.
Last week Jeff invited me to speak on a panel he was moderating and I thought he provided some invaluable insights on the state of the mortgage environment for residential housing so I asked him to join me on The Housing Helix.
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30 Jun 2010 | Development, Foreclosure, Interviews, Lending/Mortgage, Podcasts
I really enjoyed speaking with Orest Tomaselli, CEO, National Condo Advisors, LLC about project approvals, reserve funds, Fannie Mae, FHA and shadow inventory. National Condo Advisors, LLC, is comprised of real estate finance and legal professionals and provides expert consultation to builders, developers, homeowners’ associations, institutional investors, lenders, and real estate firms.
His other firm National Condo Inspections, LLC provides services such as reserve studies, phase I environmental site assessments, noise studies, and flood zone solutions.
He’s going to be busy for a number of years.
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13 May 2010 | Interviews, Lending/Mortgage, Podcasts, Technology
Today I speak with Chris Williams, President and Chief Technology Officer of AIMSdashboard,
“Williams is a 15-year veteran of the IT industry, having served stints with Cisco Systems and PolyServe, a software startup acquired by HP. At one time he was co-owner of Carolina Appraisers, a real estate appraisal firm based in Raleigh.”
AIMS stands for “appraisal independence management system,” and “dashboard” is a software term meaning a control panel housing two or more applications.
His venture was enabled by introduction of the May 1, 2009 agreement between Fannie Mae and NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo known as the Home Valuation Code of Conduct.
AIMSdashboard is intended to help financial institutions take back control of the mortgage process through a software solution. Chris was very quick to point out that his company is a software company, NOT an appraisal management company.
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03 May 2010 | Appraising, Commentary, Lending/Mortgage, Podcasts
Think lender pressure on appraisers is a distant memory? Think again. Here is some commentary on a new report that indicates appraisal fraud is up 50% over the past year. It is laid out in Kenneth Harney’s excellent column in the Washington Post.
“Despite 2009 restrictions, mortgage and appraisal fraud spiked”
I also provide commentary on a recent episode with a bank client we now refuse to work with who pressured our firm to raise the appraised value of a property or they would not pay us for services already rendered.
In fact, they didn’t really understand what they were saying.
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27 Jun 2009 | Interviews, Lending/Mortgage, Podcasts
I spoke with Ellen Harnick, Senior Policy Counsel of the Center for Responsible Lending about the initial testimony being made in Congress on the formation of a Consumer Protection Agency for financial products. Ellen is my first repeat guest, a wealth of information and she has a great way of explaining what is going on. She has offered to check in periodically as consumer policy develops in Washington. Here is some of her previous congressional testimony.
Here’s a recent piece she wrote in the Washington Post blog “The Hearing” called The Case for a Consumer Protection Agency.
I made another attempt to Skype since Ellen is in North Carolina and I’m in NYC – this time there wasn’t the crazy lag when capturing the audio. Progress in technology is measured in baby steps, my friends.
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18 May 2009 | Interviews, Lending/Mortgage, Podcasts
This week I was lucky to interview Ellen Harnick, Senior Policy Counsel, the Center for Responsible Lending. She has testified in front of Congress on more than one occasion regarding lending and consumer issues.
I’m a novice at using Skype in a podcast so the quality was a little dicey at times with delays – like we were speaking via satellite – but it seemed to improve throughout the interview (after all, the Internet is a series of tubes).
Ellen and I have spoken at length on prior occasions about US lending practices. I find her to be someone who can listen to my experiences – the insanity that appraisers are faced with – and understand the ramifications (plus not get frazzled by my incessant interruptions). She provides a great perspective from the consumer side and is passionate and knowledgeable about the subject matter.
Here’s a transcript of her recent appearance on NewsHour with Jim Lehr.
The crisis started, actually, with these very tricky mortgages that had confusing terms and some of their costs were obscured. And as those mortgages started to fail, we saw foreclosures rise.
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