Supply and demand drive markets and prices, including luxury items and especially housing. What do you give the person who has everything? How about a pretty personalized credit card? “Each card takes over 100 man-hours of delicate and painstakingly meticulous work. Aurae master jewelers craft your designs into precious metal and stone; providing you a durable, functional and elegant piece of art.” Maybe they could use some of those man-hours in Northern California where 5,000 residential units were destroyed last year due to wildfires. Most of those homes have yet to be rebuilt, in part because of a dearth of construction crews. As a result, rental prices have shot up by as much as 30 percent, and there’s a vacancy rate of just 1.5 percent for residential structures.

Appraisal, Valuation, M&A

Narrow Gauge Capital announced it has completed the acquisition of Class Appraisal, LLC. “Class Appraisal is a leading nationwide provider of real estate asset valuation and appraisal management solutions to the residential mortgage industry…ICG Strategic Equity and Aberdeen Standard Investments provided equity co-investment in the transaction alongside Narrow Gauge Capital. Keefe Bruyette & Woods, a Stifel Company, acted as exclusive financial advisor to Class Appraisal in the transaction, and Bass Berry & Sims PLC served as legal counsel to the Company. Berkery Noyes served as exclusive financial advisor to NGC in the transaction, and Winston & Strawn LLP served as legal counsel.”

Wells Fargo Funding has removed the following appraisal requirements and aligned its Prior Approval High Balance Conforming Loan Program with Fannie Mae: Trainee appraisers and Field reviews. It is also removing duplicate appraisal age policy language from Section 841.07: Underwriting Requirements. Continue to refer to Section 820.13(a): Age of Documents.

Plaza provided the following tip of the week about Transferred Files with an Existing Appraisal: FHA’s new guidelines in Handbook 4000.1 state that the lender to which an appraisal was transferred to cannot ask the appraiser to re-address or make corrections to the appraisal. If the underwriter finds deficiencies in the transferred appraisal, a new appraisal must be ordered.

Starting March 1, appraisal fees in the state of Washington increased for Mountain West Financial Wholesale clients. Updated appraisal fees are located on its website.

Effective Sunday, March 4 Flagstar Bank removed the following Appraisal Management Companies (AMCs) from Loantrac: Valuation Connect and Property Science. Additionally noted, Flagstar Bank will no longer be maintaining an approved Leasehold list. Effective Immediately, the Flagstar Approved Leaseholds, Doc. #3247 will be removed from the Seller’s Guide.

Effective immediately, Flagstar Banks’ requirement of a field review (Form 2000 or 2000A) on properties valued at $1,000,000 or more, when the LTV, CLTV, or HCLTV exceeds 75%, has been removed.

For all properties in the city of Moab, Utah, an engineer and soil report is required to confirm that the property is not located on or near a sinkhole per Pacific Union Financial. Any property identified as being located on or near a sinkhole (as indicated by the appraisal, or engineer and soil report) is ineligible, as insurance is not available in the area for sinkholes.

FAMC Correspondent is no longer requiring a Field Review on DU High Balance Loans. Also, FAMC has made the following updates applicable to detached condominiums, provided the applicable appraisal, insurance, and priority lien requirements are met: Project reviews are no longer required for all detached condominiums. This includes detached units located in projects comprised of attached and detached units. Detached condos are eligible for construction-to-permanent financing with a DU Approve/Eligible recommendation.

In a bid to get a leg up on the competition, Better Mortgage is allowing prospective home buyers to get an appraisal on a property before actually making an offer. Ideally, this gives them the power to go head-to-head with all-cash buyers, who are often favored because of the relative risks involved with obtaining an appraisal after an offer is accepted.

New Leaf’s Oak products allow properties with up to 40 acres. Contact NewLeaf Oak Select QM Highlights.

Accurate Group has officially launched its real estate portfolio valuation solution for capital markets firms. The solution is designed for asset managers, hedge funds, investment banks, and other investment firms that have significant residential real estate and mortgage-related portfolio holdings. The solution combines Accurate Group’s market-leading ValueNet™ desktop appraisal technology platform and industry-compliant appraisal processes unique to capital markets firms to provide fast, accurate valuations on portfolios that include real estate, whole loan sales, mortgage portfolios, mortgage pools and mortgage-backed securities. The solution has been reviewed by the top ratings agencies as part of Accurate Group’s market validation process.

Banc of California has made a couple appraisal/value changes. One appraisal is required on purchase or R&T loan amount up to $2 million and Cash Out Refinances up to 1.5MM loan amount (Previously Banc of California required two appraisals at 1.5MM/1MM respectively). And the company will utilize a rental survey for the departing residence without a lease agreement or deposit check. If there is 25% equity, 75% of the rental survey can offset the PITIA. If there is 50% equity, “we will allow positive cash flow that exceeds the PITIA. To support the equity position, a drive-by appraisal or exterior only report is acceptable (previously we required a full appraisal and would not allow positive cash flow).”

When you do a rate and term refinance in the borrower’s name, you can get the benefit of the landlord’s property value increase. Wondering how? Contact Angel Oak Mortgage Solutions for details.

The overseer of Freddie and Fannie – the FHFA – released a working paper that every appraiser, and anyone who relies on appraisals, should read. “In this paper, we study whether there are any systematic quality differences between appraisals associated and unassociated with appraisal management companies (AMCs). We find that compared to non-AMC appraisals, AMC appraisals on average share a similar degree of overvaluation despite being more prone to contract price confirmation and super overvaluation.

“AMC appraisals also share a similar propensity for mistakes, despite employing a greater number of comparable properties. Our evaluation employs relatively simple statistical comparisons, but the results indicate no clear evidence of any systematic quality differences between appraisals associated and unassociated with AMCs.”

Capital Markets

Time to lock in some borrowers? Many lenders are seeing an uptick in biz. The 10-year yield finally dipped below 2.80% at yesterday’s close, spurred on by decreasing consumer sentiment. The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index decreased to 127.7 in March, well below expectations of a 129.5 reading after a revised 130.0 from February. Granted, the February reading hit the highest level since 2000, and despite a slight moderation in business expectations, consumers have not reported major changes to their outlook. The S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index increased 6.4% YoY in January. Expectations were for a 6.3% increase after increasing 6.3% in December, so it was about as expected.

In international news, more than 140 Russian intelligence agents have now been expelled from 25 countries for Russia's alleged poisoning of a former intelligence officer living in the UK, meaning history's largest collective expulsion of Russian intelligence officers has gotten even larger. This undoubtedly had some impact on “the belly” of Treasury yields, due to soaring Eurodollars and a stall to the recent rise in LIBOR. Treasuries have traded well all week in the face of supply ahead of the quarter end trade despite concerns about elevated funding levels. Yesterday afternoon, the NY Fed released a new two-week FedTrade schedule covering the March 28 to April 12 period. During the period, the Desk is expected to purchase up to $6.035 billion, a touch more than expected, with one break on April 11 resulting in a daily average target over the period of $0.5 billion per business day.

Weekly mortgage applications from the MBA for the week ending March 23 kicked off today: up nearly 5 percent with refis up over 7 percent and purchases up over 3 percent. The third and final Q4 GDP release came in at +2.9% versus expectations for 2.4% reading versus 2.5% in the previous report – stronger than expected. The release of February Pending Home Sales Index will be at 10AM ET, expected to increase 2.5% versus a 4.7% decline in January, and we also have a $29 billion 7-year note auction by the Treasury. We start Hump Day with the 10-year at 2.78% and agency MBS prices worse a tad versus Tuesday’s close, so rates are slightly higher this morning on the strong GDP number.

Lender Products

With its continued growth, Bank of Hope is proud to announce the recent hiring of Nicole Thomsen as Vice President, Relationship Manager for Bank of Hope’s Warehouse Lending Department. With extensive knowledge in mortgage banking and warehouse lending, Nicole will be focusing on the development and expansion of the warehouse lending business unit. Bank of Hope is a super-regional bank headquartered in Los Angeles, CA with over $14 billion in assets. Bank of Hope offers warehouse lines for mortgage bankers of all size, competitive LIBOR-based pricing, a streamlined funding process, and excellent customer service. We encourage you to consider Bank of Hope as a warehouse partner prior to obtaining a line of credit elsewhere. For more information, please call or email Nicole Thomsen (858-342-2790).

Want to maximize your return on capital? So does Phil DeFronzo, CEO and founder of Norcom Mortgage. That’s one of the reasons he and CFO Dan Humphrey selected the Alight Mortgage Lending application. “Alight integrates and aggregates all of your key financial and operational data so you can keep your finger on the financial pulse of your business and make better-informed decisions—quickly. ‘Alight will help us determine the best allocation of capital across our different channels to optimize profitability, maximize our return on capital and improve performance,’ Phil says. Dan adds, ‘With Alight, we’ll be able to quickly and easily identify sources of variance from budget or expected performance and take immediate corrective action.’ For more information, or to request a demo, contact Alight.

“Floify, the leading end-to-end mortgage point-of-sale (POS) solution, is poised to completely change the way borrowers apply for loans with the upcoming release of their remastered “interview-style” 1003 application. Currently being redesigned from the ground up, Floify’s updated 1003 is widely expected to be a game-changer within the mortgage industry, as anticipated by Floify’s top-producing LO insiders. Slated for a May release, Floify’s new 1003 promises to give your borrowers a beautiful, simple, and secure online loan application.” To get a sneak peek at their new 1003, request a live demo.

Employment

Lima One Capital is looking for experienced, motivated outside sales executives to identify qualified investors in the West, Northeast, and Central & Southern Florida regions. This is a fast-paced, high-growth position for sales professionals with prior industry experience, for a true sales person wanting to expand their origination talents. The role requires travel throughout the region, representing Lima One Capital, while identifying and closing investors. Lima One Capital provides industry leading financing for fix-and-flip, rental, and multifamily investments. It is their mission to become the Nation’s premier lender for real estate investors. If you are in one of these markets and interested in joining the Lima One team, they want to hear from you! Visit Lima Employment to learn more about a career with Lima One Capital.

“Are you an experienced salesperson looking to grow your book of business with an aggressively expanding, well capitalized company? Towne Mortgage Company is looking for an energetic individual to take the wheel to expand their production with direct access to Marketing, Underwriting and our Servicing Departments. Towne is a Direct Lender/Servicer with 37 years’ experience serving our community. Our focus is on supplying our salespeople with the tools they need to be successful, whether that be our Industry leading CRM, Vantage, or our product offerings of Conventional, FHA, 203(k), USDA, VA, Jumbo, and soon to be Day 1 Certainty. This salesperson can expect benefits including medical, dental, paid time off, and a 401k company match.” Interested? Email Cassi Sluka for more information.

Roostify, one of the fastest growing fin-tech companies in the country, is expanding its team and looking for an Enterprise Sales Director in the Southeast US region. From the company's CEO, Rajesh Bhat, "It’s an exciting time to be at Roostify. We’ve rolled out at several top-tier national lenders, we’re expanding our platform capabilities to improve more parts of getting a loan, and we’ve just raised a $25M Series B with a round of prestigious investors to help us accelerate our growth and further capitalize on a fantastic market opportunity. We’re looking for creative, passionate people to help us get there." Apply directly through the website, or contract Roostify's Corporate Recruiter, Jodi Hoey.