Appraisal Scoop

REMBEX.com - Real Estate & Mortgage Blog Search Engine

Todd Carpenter, a mortgage professional with a decade of diverse experience in the mortgage industry, built lenderama to share his experiences with other mortgage and real estate professionals.

Thursday, Todd announced the launch of REMBEX.com - Real Estate & Mortgage Blogger's Exchange.

Until now, it's been difficult to find, filter, and digest relevant real estate blog content, when so many "Googled" blogs are either self-promotional or RSS article feeds from other sites.

What Todd has done, is compile 250 active, relevant blogs, plus all of the blog on the activerain.com network, and input them into a single Google Co-op search engine. 

"This engine bridges the gap between searching each blog individually, and using a more global search engine like Technorati or Google Blog Search. Those bigger engines can be useful, but I've found that they don't differentiate between dedicated realty bloggers and anyone with a blog, that happens to mention real estate. The big search engines also tend to bring up results from sploggers or almost any site that uses RSS feeds."

To read more about the REMBEX.com search engine - click here
. 

Housing Starts Dropped 14.3% as Builders Reduce Inventories

According to HousingEconomics.com, housing starts slumped 14.3 percent in January 2007 to an annual pace of 1.408 million while building permits declined 2.8 percent from December to a 1.568 million pace.

Starts of single-family homes dropped 11.2 percent last month to a 1.108 million rate, the weakest since August 1997, while work on multifamily units contracted by 24.1 percent to an annual rate of 300,000. All four Census regions participated in the month-to-month decline, the largest declines having been posted in the Midwest and West.

Housing Starts and Building Permits for January 2007
	DATE	CURRENT		LAST	% Change	Download Starts and Permits
Starts	2/16/2007	1.408M		1.643 M	-14.3%
Permits	2/16/2007	1.568M		1.613 M	-2.8%

Read additional information and download data (Excel) for Housing Starts & Permits.

Inside Look At Change in Relocation Industry

Inman News' three-part series focuses on changing forces and their impact on the relocation industry. Inman News targets three main aspects of change: rising fees and their effect on real estate professionals; the housing slowdown; and how an increasingly global economy is ramping up the relocation industry. 

Part 1: Relocation fees reach breaking point for some agents

Part 2: Real estate slowdown shakes up relo benefits

Part 3: Real estate firms cash in on globalization   

Runt's Rants - Grow an Appraisal Business Series Part Four - The Numbers Always Change!

In the previous posts of this series we suggested a way to estimate what you are earning per hour as an appraiser.  The exercise worked whether you were an entrepreneur or an employee.  That got us to thinking about what revenue and expenses really are, and to consider expenses as further divided into fixed and variable costs. 

We then presented a Start Up Business Model for you to download and apply what you learned. You can download the Excel mode by clicking [here] . We asked you to input your own costs into that model so that  you could view your business from a fixed and variable cost perspective.  From that base we discussed Pricing Strategies for businesses which are at different stages of their growth cycle. 

I hope that exercise gave you some insight into how to grow your business through a rational pricing strategy that never, ever put you in a position to accept new business at a loss.  Instead, you should be able to negotiate with the next prospective client  with a clear understanding of your costs, and what price you can agree to which will still contribute to your objectives.

I promised at the end of the last post that we'd discuss how each new order priced above variable cost lowers your average fixed costs and improves your overall profitability. 

Let's see if I can explain that point - Click below to continue reading . . .

Divorce - Getting Your House Appraised

Q: My wife and I had our house appraised last summer when we were first talked about splitting up. We will be officially divorced this spring and understand an appraisal is critical in buying one spouse out. Do we use the appraisal figures from last summer or do we have the house appraised again? I ask because the market has gone down since then.  -- P. Faulk

A:  Real Estate Adviser Steve McLinden tackles this question on the Bankrate.com site.  Here's are a few quotes from his response:

" . . . you will certainly need to have your house reappraised to reflect recent changes in the market, particularly since the valuation should reflect the home's worth at the time of the divorce."

" . . to avoid potential conflicts of interest and additional acrimony, divorcing spouses should each get independent appraisals."

"If you decide to get just one appraisal done, make sure the choice of appraiser is made by mutual consent and that both of you are present, if possible, when it is being done."

Click here for the complete article.  To ask a question of the Real Estate Adviser, go to the "Ask the Experts" page and select "buying, selling a home" as the topic.

Trulia.com's Heat Maps Offer a Visual View

In their first installment of new column, 'The Smart Surfer,' the Real Estate Journal takes a look at Trulia.com's Heat Maps, a visual tool for mapping out price and sales trends across the U.S.  They review its pluses and minuses, and offer insider tips on using the tool.  Click here for the full story.

Current USPAP To Remain In Effect Until December 31, 2007

The Appraisal Foundation is reminding appraisers and those with an interest in valuation that the current edition of the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP), which was adopted on July 1, 2006, will remain in effect until December 31, 2007. In addition, all National USPAP Course material and other related publications will also remain in effect for the same time period.

A new version of USPAP will become effective on January 1, 2008, and from that point forward USPAP will be published on a two-year cycle. The new two-year cycle will allow the Appraisal Standards Board to continue to make meaningful changes to the document and will allow the marketplace and education providers adequate time to absorb future modifications.

For more details on USPAP, the work of the Appraisal Standards Board and The Appraisal Foundation overall please visit www.appraisalfoundation.org.

Transforming Your Digital Camera into an Electronic Measuring Tape

iPhotoMEASURE Standard Edition is a revolutionary software tool that enables you to measure anything in a photo taken with your digital camera. This is very useful when physical measurements are difficult or unsafe to perform.

The iPhotoMEASURE program comes with DigiTargets, which are placed in any area you want to photograph/measure. The DigiTarget provides the software with an accurate scale to base its measurements on.

All that's required is to:

1. Take a digital photo.
2. Open the photo in the iPhotoMEASURE program and select the DigiTarget in the picture for reference. The software automatically measures anything in the photo with 95% to 99.5% accuracy (depending on the angle of the photo).
3. Save, print, share and/or archive the photo with the measurements embedded.   

How Precise?  Just how accurate are measurements taken from a photograph? According to their website, from 40 feet away, the program has about 93% accuracy. From 30 feet, that increases to 98%, and only gets better the closer you get to the target. “The software is always 100% accurate — but it's the quality of the camera lens that will determine the true accuracy." 

There is also a quick video you can watch to see how the software works. Website can be found here.

Thanks to Jim Amorin's, MAI, SRA blog Appraisal Podcasts for the tip on this product!

Runt's Rants - Grow an Appraisal Business Series Part Three - Marketing

The prior posts in this series have dealt with understanding your business from a simple accounting view...First, to get an idea at what you earn per hour for your labor.  Second, to understand the concept of fixed and variable costs and how it applies to your business.

A Business Start Up Model was offered for download last week that could be used to apply to your business. Three phases of a business cycle were described.  Suggestions were made to help you determine where you were in your own business cycle.  We then discussed what pricing strategies might be appropriate in each phase.

Hopefully you've spent a week playing with that model and you now are ready to compete!

Underlying all that we've talked about so far, and all that comes next assumes a benchmark has been established. That benchmark is a base of the highest ethical behavior, an unwavering commitment to quality and service, and a strict adherence to the Scope of Work which is agreed upon with each assignment accepted.  Anything less will result in your business eventually becoming road kill on the competitive highway.  It may take a short time, it may take a longer time, but without a basic commitment to high ethical and quality and service standards, the result will be road kill.

That's understood, right?  Successful businesses don't cut corners.  There is no other way. None.

I'm not a marketing guru.  Far from it.  Brian, my editor here, owner of Appraisal Scoop, is a marketing guy.  He has posted on that topic here several times.  Others have also.  I defer to all of them.  But I will tell you what we have done.

Click below to read on . . . .

Over 200 Loans Originated by Unlicensed Lender

CHICAGO - Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced that her office, working with the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR), has filed suit against three affiliated Riverside area mortgage companies and their president for operating without a mortgage license

The total of the mortgages exceeds $10 million, the proceeds of the loans were allegedly funneled to one of several sham home repair companies the defendant also owned in an attempt to defraud the borrowers.

Click here for the Full Story