ClickFORMS 6.7.0
ClickFORMS 6.7.0 will be released early next week. The majority of changes are related to form enhancements and updates. We are happy to announce that the FNMA 1004MC now calculates. Additionally, the Appraisal Studio to ClickFORMS Converter is now available — United Systems users can now convert their Appraisal Studio reports to a ClickFORMS-readable format.

Other Improvements Include:

• Review Short Extra Comaprables now Calculates
• RELS Desk Enhanced Review Form exports to Lighthouse
• Listings Comparison Analysis #2 now Converts to Lighthouse
• Multipurpose Supplemental Addendum #2 now Converts to Lighthouse

Be sure to use the auto-update feature to get this latest release.

The Appraisal Studio converter will be available on our download page early next week.

Lots Going On In Appraisal Industry
HVCC, BPOs, lawsuits, 1004MC, AMCs, re-engineering the appraisal process, new releases... it’s a bit difficult to keep up, but one thing is for sure — a lot of stuff is happening. Below is an overview of some of it.

NAMB files suit against FHFA over HVCC
The National Association of Mortgage Brokers (NAMB) filed a lawsuit Monday, February 23, against the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director James B. Lockhart over the controversial HVCC.

“The HVCC does nothing but drive up costs for consumers and push small businesses out of the market,” said NAMB President, Marc Savitt. “The HVCC will drastically reduce the ability of mortgage brokers to provide consumers with an efficient and cost-effective means of obtaining a mortgage.”

NAMB cites that while they approve policy initiatives that would ban coercion among appraisers, the organization believes mortgage brokers and real estate professionals need to continue to maintain an appropriate level of contact with appraisers to ensure appraisal quality.

1004MC – Henry Harrison Illustrated Guide to 1004MC
This form has caused a lot of controversy. We don’t think we have ever seen so many workshops, seminars, books, spreadsheets developed for a particular form in the last 20 years. But this one has and starting April 1, it will be mandatory for most appraisals. Starting Monday, we be reselling Henry Harrison’s Illustrated Guide to the 1004MC. Look for it in the AppraisalWorld Shopping Mall.

AARO Sends Letter to Geithner Warning Against BPOs
The Executive Board of the Association of Appraiser Regulatory Officials (AARO) sent a letter to Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner on Tuesday, Sept. 24, warning against federal policies that would allow the use of Broker Price Opinions (BPOs) in establishing real property collateral values for mortgage modifications. The five main reasons the AARO listed to Geithner were:

1) Real estate appraisals are far more likely than BPOs or AVMs (Automated Valuation Models) to produce accurate opinions of the fair market values of single-family collateral properties;

2) Individuals performing BPOs lack substantial qualifications to perform valuations, may not be objective when performing valuations, and are not accountable for their work;

3) Permitting brokers or real estate agents to perform valuations would severely weaken the system of state appraiser certification and licensing;

4) There is an ample supply of appraisers who can perform real estate appraisals quickly and reliably; and

5) Appraisal licensing agencies protect the public and the appraisals used by the financial market.

Association of Texas Appraisers
Jeff Bradford spoke recently spoke at the Association of Texas Appraisers conference on the use of more analytics in the appraisal process and surviving in an AMC world. The bottom line is producing a quality report that stands up to scrutiny. With the advent of the 1004MC, the declining market, and so many foreclosures, a thorough analysis of market conditions is going to be very important and using analytics to help in the analysis will help in supporting your conclusions.

AppraisalWorld Directory — Track the Performance of Your Listing
Are you a member of the AppraisalWorld Directory? In the last six months, there have been over 11,000 searches performed. Each search results in top 20 appraisers being displayed. We have found from interviews that clients are using the directory not necessarily to place orders directly, but to find appraisers for their fee panel or to inquire if they will take a particular job. So make sure your directory information is accurate and up to date.

We don’t just make empty promises about what the directory can do for you. You can track its performance yourself with our “My Directory Listing Statistics” webpage.

You will be able to see how many times your name has been displayed, how many times your listing has been clicked and your business card displayed, and how many orders you have received through AppraisalWorld. You can even get the statistics for a given date range.

To join AppraisalWorld for free, click here.

AppraisalWorld Credential Management
As you know, new AMCs are being created everyday to comply with the new HVCC rules. There are over 130 at last count. Since many appraisers will be getting their work from AMCs we have created a special service to help the AMC and you to connect.

Our new tool allows you to, literally with one click, apply to all 130 AMC fee panels. Here’s how it works: You upload your appraiser related credentials to the AppraisalWorld Credential Management system, when everything is in order, (i.e. E&O certificate, appraisal licenses, sample reports, resume, etc) you simply click on the Send function to send an email to all 130 AMCs. The email grants them access to your Credential Locker for the time period you specify, say 24 hours.

A Credential Locker is a secure, private online storage for your information. It allows you to easily manage and update your credentials. Only you can give someone access to it and even then its time limited access – such as 24 hours. Credential Lockers is benefit of Premium Membership which is only $99 per year.

Click here to view a sample Credential Locker.

ClickFORMS Tech Tip: How to copy forms from one report to another

1. Open the report you want to copy the forms from.

2. Go to FILE > OPEN and open the report you want to copy the forms to.

3. Go to WINDOWS and select the TILE VERTICALLY option. This will place the reports side by side.

4. Click on the Window that contains your report and Go to VIEW and select the COLLAPSE ALL PAGES option. This will collapse the forms and give you a view of the yellow title bars of all the forms in your report.

5. On the Yellow title bar left-click hold and drag the forms you want from one report into the window of the other report.

6. You will get a message stating you've added a form with data and will be prompted to either export your data into the report, or import data from the report to the form you just added.

7. Click the Export button.