Reply #8: Good point...plenty of shady appraisers out there. [View All]

[Snarkoleptic]

I've seen appraisals where the home looked OK from the outside, but had been completely gutted.
No furnace, no cabinets, no fixtures, no doors, etc...
Shady appraisers usually don't last long. They get blacklisted and added to exclusion lists.

Funny thing is that loan officers who work in banks and other federally chartered institutions are exepmt from licensing and continuing education requirements. These captive loan officers are generally less qualified and have a more narrow product offering.
It's like we say "When the only tool you have is a hammer, everyting looks like a nail.". There are plenty of horror stories about industry newby's working at the local bank giving people poor advice and placing them in inappropriate financing vehicles.

The big push now is to blame the mortgage broker community for the foreclosure meltdown. Many banks are closing their wholesale operations (which is the broker channel) and expanding retail. They'd like nothing better than to corner the market and set the price themselves.

A good mortgage broker can consitently beat a banks, credit union, online broker, etc by 3/8 of a point. I closed a refinance for a client on Friday where I beat the Motorola Credit Union by 5/8% ($110/month in their case).