Relative to the sub-prime mortgage problems of the last year, could it be that the lending community has learned its lesson? It certainly has reacted to the problem in typical fashion: When the market is flying high, lenders will make a loan to a corpse, in our present market, well, bring a pint of blood and your first born child. It is dishearting to me because I have never understood why good lending practices didn't come first. I have had to adhere to good practices to retain a share of market return. It should have been good enough for them as well.
For the appraiser, appraisal criteria has been narrowed and will become even tighter in the future. Lenders are letting us know that federal regulations will also become stiff. As I look at the proposals of Attoney General Cuomo of New York with regard to this, at first I could say "its about time"; give an appraiser an 800 number to turn in a lender for bad practice? The winds of political expendiancy tell me this provision won't last long.
No matter what takes place in the halls of Congress relative to this mortgage mess, we appraisers should remember why we got into this profession; we perform this service because we know how and they don't, and it not the appraisal you do today nor the appraisal that you may not get tommrow, it is Serundipity; what you find along the way, that most important. (what do you want for a philosophy major???)