In 2005, over 8,000 appraisers sent out a petition TO BEN BERNANKE AT THE FED, ringing the Appraisal Fraud by Lenders Alarm.
HAD BERNANKE, THE FED, PAULSON, AND TREASURY ACTED to stop the APPRAISAL FRAUD that jacked house prices through the roof, THEY could of saved us and the WORLD from the brink of economic disaster.
No one listened. Our entire GOVERNMENT AND THE FED allowed the Appraisal Fraud to run rampant even to this day.
This diary was originally posted on OCT 25, 2010 AT 04:18 PM PDT
I am reposting in response to this diary:
ON SECOND THOUGHT: Fed Chair Bernanke Now OPPOSES Fraudclosure
Today there are more than 10,000 signatures from Appraisers throughout the country.
In June, 2007 the American Society of Appraisers' sent another Alarm to BS Bernanke: Letter to Bernanke.
June, 2008, another letter to Bernanke thanking him for the "final rule amending Regulation Z (Truth in Lending Act and Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act").
2009 - The highest "reported" appraisal fraud incidents. Some fix, BS:
It took Bernanke more than year to figure this out. Oh wait, he knew in 2005. It took Bernanke 7 years to figure this out. I have a bridge to sell if you believe him.
em>Keep in mind that there is a cya fraud reporting system, set up by a
division of our records keeper: ChoicePoint. The table lists ONLY those that were reported, Most were not reported. This hammer has yet to hit. I refuse to let them keep hiding this gruesome reality)
Appraisal Fraud Jumps 50% in 2009: MARI
Short-sale appraisal fraud to be 2010 story?
People are NOT underwater today because of this or that.
HOUSES ARE UNDERWATER BECAUSE OF RUN AWAY APPRAISAL THAT CONTINUES!
Banks didn't refuse to refinance/reset people out of their unmanageably expensive adjustable mortgages to 30 year fixed because of this or that.
Houses didn't decrease in value 30% because of this or that.
FREAKIN HOUSES WERE UNDERWATER THE MINUTE A MORTGAGE WAS EXECUTED DUE TO APPRAISAL FRAUD. Many by more than 30%!!!
Apologies for the bolded caps. I am so angry. EVERYONE charged with protecting the integrity of the market, the homeowner, and the investors did jack! They enabled what I consider to be
THE GREATEST ROBBERY IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD
AMERICA IS A CRIME SCENE
WHO WILL HELP US?
And now we hear about the Fed study for this and a Congressional Study for that.
BS Bernanke, you and Congress and all the cohorts on Wall Street know exactly what was going on from Day #1. You took the wealth of our people, our pension funds, and the wealth of many overseas via bogus MBS, CDO, and CDS.
And you have the evil temerity to take homes right out from under people? children? babies? the elderly?
Excuse Me, Your Assholiness: Couldn't you and all those brainy, quanty so-called professionals that we have to pay so much to keep come up with anything less harmful to stimulate the economy?
BS, BS: you, tim, paulson, congress, the fed, the treasury, summers, rubin, fanny, freddie, cotton tail, donkey, aliens, and everyone/anyone who profited from this hair brained, insane, criminal adventure can fix it.
We demand you fix it.
Oh no, I just had the sickest thought. What if all those MBS, CDO, and CDS were purchased with Afghanistan heroine money? Where the heck did that crazy thought come from. Where do such bizarre thoughts come from? Anyway......
We all wondered, as we watched thousands of homes being built, as if overnight, why the housing values were increasing dramatically. That isn't the way markets usually operate. Prices rise in times of scarcity.
Well, we now know that the co-opted appraisers knew, the mortgage brokers knew, the lender knew, and the regulators will have a hard time convincing us that they didn't know (ref: Alarms in Intro) that the only explanation for the rapidly rising values in a market glutted with merchandise was appraisal fraud.
Again:
The problem is so widespread, that more than 8,000 appraisers – roughly 10 percent of the industry – have signed a petition asking the federal government to take action.
"What is actually happening is lenders and brokers are telling them what value they want," he said. "If [appraisers] don't play ball, they don't get paid or don't get work again."
"The cumulative effect of appraisal fraud is you may have investors holding mortgage debt that's backed by real estate worth less than they think it is," said Martin. "It's a train wreck waiting to happen."
"All [lenders and brokers] want to do is hit the number because if they don't hit the number the deal doesn't go through and if the deal doesn't go through they don't get the commission," said Zielinski.
In theory, it's in a bank's best interest to make sure its loans are based on accurate appraisals, said M. Thomas Martin, of the National Mortgage Complaint Center in Seattle. "But if you're selling the loans to the secondary market, you really don't care," he said. "The higher the value, the better."
There you have it. Our question is answered. Home values didn't magically double and quadruple their value in 4-5 short years. Fraudulent appraisals did that.
Or worse! There may e several investors attached to a property each claiming the mortgage amount. This subject is another diary:
"Who knows who owns What?"
Tens of millions of homeowners who were charged too much for their home!
Tens of millions of homeowners who borrowed against NO EQUITY.
"There are a lot of people who have refinanced for more than their homes are actually worth and they're effectively already upside down even without a real estate bubble bursting," said Callahan. Down the road if they have to sell or decide to refinance, a more accurate appraisal might show that they owe more than the house is worth.
Is there no recourse for these victims of fraudulent appraisals?
AMERICA IS A CRIME SCENE
Well, here's the truth. There was no HUGE home valuation increase. There was thuggery, coercion, and collusion. There was a crime spree.
Listen to the desparation in this 2007 Letter from the Appraisers. No one has listened to their alarms. They have given up on the Senate:
Our organizations believe the cited regulation gives the Fed Board the jurisdiction to punish the bad actors in the mortgage lending industry, and with the Senate not likely to legislate a solution, we encourage you use this guidance to protect consumers and honest mortgage professionals from abusive lending practices in all types of mortgage loans.
Moreover, with the rising numbers of appraisers subjected to pressure during the mortgage process, we would like you to include “appraiser coercion” on the list of prohibited practices in the Truth in Lending Act.
Several states have laws banning appraiser pressure, and recently, the Attorneys General of Ohio and New York have subpoenaed mortgage brokers, lenders and appraisers in ongoing investigations, for improperly pressuring appraisers to inflate home values.
_________________________
So, BS, since you all have proven you and the rest either completely lack an iota of common sense and/or are psychotically criminal, or both and more, I feel a lot less hubristic about offering you a solution:
STOP THE MUSICAL HOME GAME NOW!!!
We know what happened. We are disgusted. We want resolutions now.
And put people back in the damn homes at a price that meets their income, create flexible mortgages that can compensate for income fluctuations, and then resign.