Wisconsin Chapter

President's Column by Richard Zurowski, SRA

First, I would like to thank Don Moore for his energetic and thought provoking tenure as the Chapter President for 2002. For those of you not familiar with Don’s company, Houses.Com, I encourage you to check it out.

I would like to begin my first president’s message by telling you how excited and proud I am to be President of the Wisconsin Chapter of the Appraisal Institute. The mission and goal of our chapter is to promote professionals providing real estate solutions, through education and peer review. I am also serving as the education chair, with a full slate of offerings for this year in place. Please review the schedule and mark your calenders appropriately. With this year being the end of a cycle year, we are providing a wide variety of offerings. Next year will be limited to a few locally produced seminars. This year our major educational offering is scheduled for February 24th and 25th, with topics for the residential appraiser being “Residential Design and Functional Utility” followed by “Advanced Writing Skills for the Residential Appraiser.” The topic for the commercial appraisers is “Evaluating Commercial Construction.”

Nationally, the Appraisal Institute is in the process of changing the way education will be developed and marketed. In 2004, look for a strong marketing effort and reduced prices on entry level courses, providing a more reasonably priced vehicle to attract new professionals into the appraisal industry.

While the number of appraisers, along with membership in the Appraisal Institute, have been declining in recent years, 2002 experienced a reversal with approximately 2000 new Appraisal Institute members. The membership growth was balanced between commercial and residential. I would like to welcome those new to the Wisconsin Chapter and invite you to share in the many advantages to membership, including reduced cost for education, personal connections, recognition among peers, referrals for higher fee assignments, a variety of resources for those unique appraisal assignments, and the knowledge to work smarter not harder.

I encourage all members to join AI Direct, the appraisal management company under the direction of the Appraisal Institute, with more membership participation the easier the marketing efforts will be.

Another area of interest regarding the national organization is reducing the number of regions from its current number of ten to five, within the next two years. This will save the national organization approximately $200,000 in expenses.

Form reports are not limited to residential appraisers, out of requests from national investors and Wall Street, standardized commercial reports are being developed with input provided by the Appraisal Institute.

Thank you for your support, and I look forward to seeing each of you at our convention in February.

“From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life.” - Arthur Ashe

Treasurer's Report

The Chapter funds as of 12/31/02 are:

Primary checking account: $28,686.88
Money market account: $6415.17
CD $99.92

Total funds balance: $35,201.97
 

Board Meeting Minutes

December 4, 2002

President Don Moore called the meeting to order at 4:45 p.m. at the Olympia Resort, Oconomowoc, Wisconsin.

Members Present
Don Moore, Michael Brachmann, Chris Ruditys, Steve Stiloski, Sherry Andrus, Curt Kolell, Timothy Leberman, Angela Kwasny, Wade E. Graves, Richard Zurowski, Detlef Weiler, Steve Vitale and Tim Warner.

Secretary's Report
The Secretary's Report was approved conditioned upon a statement being included that during the last meeting the chapter voted to support Mr. McCallum in his bid for political office. Nine members approved the recommendation for chapter support and two members declined, the motion carried.

Treasurer's Report
The treasurer's report was submitted by Mr. Steve Vitale, and approved as submitted. The 2003 budget was discussed and a motion was made, seconded and carried by full consent of the members present to eliminate the sub-chapter revenue and expenses from the budget and to reduce the administrative fee by $4,500.00. With this condition accepted Mr. Ruditys administrative contract for the upcoming fiscal year, representing the Commercial Association of REALTORS, Wisconsin, Inc., was unanimously approved by the members present.

Old Business
No old business was covered during this meeting.

New Business
Sherry Andrus began a discussion about the need for more quality education offerings. She felt that reliance upon educational offerings rather than appropriate increases in annual dues assessment to the chapter members would not meet our budgetary requirements. A nominal increase in dues was instituted previously to hopefully improve the chapter's financial condition. The end result of the discussion was that everyone agreed that the quality and viability of the educational offerings would require close scrutiny before acceptance and implementation.

There being no further business, President Moore adjourned the meeting.

Wade E. Graves, Ph.D., MAI
Wisconsin Chapter Secretary of the Appraisal Institute

 

Appraisal Institute Submits Comment Letter on HUD Strategic Plan FY 2003-2008

On December 13, the Appraisal Institute submitted comments to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development regarding its Strategic Plan for FY 2003-2008, commending the department for recognizing the need for improvement in its handling of appraisals, particularly within its Federal Housing Administration Office of Single Family Housing.

The Appraisal Institute applauded several of the Department’s goals, including its desire to increase homeownership opportunities; the embracing of high standards of ethics, management and accountability; and fighting practices that permit predatory lending. The letter also commended the key appraisal points the plan hits upon, including: the need for “better monitoring of appraisals” combined with new protocols for accomplishing that monitoring; “strengthening licensing/certification for appraisers on the FHA appraiser roster”; and “requiring lenders to exercise more oversight of appraisers they employ.”

The Appraisal Institute’s comment letter lists suggestions as to how HUD can best accomplish these goals. First, it proposes HUD should protect homebuyers from unscrupulous lending practices by ensuring a homebuyer’s ability to see the fee for an appraisal itemized on their Good Faith Estimate; this addresses HUD’s currently proposed rule on modifying the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. Secondly, the letter explains HUD needs to improve its communications with the appraisal community, through holding local meetings with its appraiser contractors and creating one streamlined document detailing all of its appraisal policies. Next it cites the need for reviewing appraisers based on the quality of their appraisals (not default rates, as the proposed FHA Appraiser Watch program intends to do) and address the problem of high-volume appraisers.

The letter also says professional credentials of appraisers on the FHA Appraiser Roster need to be strengthened by removing unqualified appraisers from the roster; increasing FHA education/qualification requirements; and improving HUD staff training. In addition, the Appraisal Institute believes HUD must require lenders to exercise more oversight of appraisers they employ by enforcing compliance with Mortgagee Letter 94-54 and with the HUD 4150.2 Handbook. Finally, the Appraisal Institute would like to see HUD establish strict policies regarding client pressure.

For more information, contact Isabel Parker, Legislative Assistant, at 202-298-5597 or iparker@appraisalinstitute.org.

 

"Member News & More"

Congratulations to the 2003 officers who were installed at the December 4th general meeting:

President: Rich Zurowski, SRA
Vice-President: S. Steven Vitale, MAI
Treasurer: Wade E. Graves, Ph.D., MAI
Secretary: Detlef Weiler, MAI

The Gohl Memorial Award was presented to Rick Vozar, SRA of West Allis, WI.