Scary Movie III- When Appraisers Attack!

If you missed this when it hit theaters you'll definitely want to rent it on Netflix. Trust me, it's scarier than Sam Raimi's new electro-shock horror film "Drag Me to Hell." 

Here's the story line.  The legion of doom aka Freddie Mac, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), and the New York State Attorney General combine forces to build The Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC) death ray machine.  It's purpose, to trick the public into believing that inaccurate, over-inflated appraisals, the kind of appraisal which allowed lenders to make bad loans helping fuel the mortgage mess, will be eradicated in the future by enhancing the independence and accuracy of the appraisal process.  In truth, the real effect of the HVCC machine is to destroy home sales across the country, causing havoc and laying waste to escrows.  It reminds me a lot of the alien weaponry that looked like a cloud of black smoke which disintegrated everything in it's path in The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Here's what the Legion of Doom HVCC machine does:

·          Prohibits lenders and third parties from influencing or attempting to influence the development, result, or review of an appraisal report (meaning a appraisal valuation can't be challenged).

·          A lender's loan production staff is prohibited from being involved in the selection of the appraiser (similar to the luck of the ping pong ball drop in the NBA lottery.  We all know how that's worked out for the Kings right?).

·          An appraisal management company now assigns some out-of-the-area guy with no experience, the main criteria being "lowest cost" "quickest turn time." (Think Dominos, forget Vito's).

        The results have been devastating.  Last month I sold a house here in town to a buyer who applied for an FHA home loan. Thing is, FHA now requires not one, but two appraisals.  The sales price was $443,000.  The first appraisal came in at value.  The second, not so much, $395,000 to be exact.  That's a $48k differential, unheard of before the Legion of Doom took over.  Needless to say it wiped out the deal, to a very qualified home buyer.  The sellers were pissed off big time because they had to start from scratch and find a new buyer at a cost of thousands of dollars and weeks of wasted time.  The horror of it all almost melted them into a puddle liquid ooze.

The HVCC was "supposed to improve the quality of appraisal process" but all it's done is tank the quality of the product and the levels of service.  I'm hoping there's another sequel, and soon,  one penned by a more talented screen writer so that we get the next installment of the series right, or at least as good as the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, at least it had aliens, Nazi bad guys and a happy ending.