Elliott & Company Appraisers


November 2006	A Publication of ELLIOTT® & Company Appraisers



MARTITIA MORTIMER NAMED EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT

ELLIOTT® & Company Appraisers announces the appointment of Martitia Mortimer to the position of executive vice president. "In her new position, Martitia will focus primarily on quality control and marketing," said Charlie Elliott, president of ELLIOTT® & Company Appraisers. Martitia, a native of Newland, NC, has a BA degree from King College in Bristol, TN, and an SRA designation from the Appraisal Institute. She has been associated with ELLIOTT® since 1984, when she joined the company as an appraiser. She became manager of the company’s Boone, NC, office in 1986 and managing partner of that office the following year. She held the owner-manager position in Boone until her recent appointment at the corporate level. She is also a shareholder of ELLIOTT® & Company Appraisers. "I am grateful for the opportunity to be involved with the corporate office of ELLIOTT® & Company Appraisers," Martitia said. "I am excited about the company’s future."

BANK EXECUTIVE CALLS FOR FEDERAL AGENCY TO ADDRESS APPRAISAL FRAUD

Douglas Vincent, executive vice president and chief collateral officer for Countrywide Bank, called for the establishment of a federal agency to focus on appraisal fraud, last month at a symposium on the subject sponsored by the Appraisal Foundation.

"It all comes down to accountability," Vincent said. "The mortgage industry needs a single federal agency to enforce the rules."

The Countrywide VP said out that most appraisal fraud cases are not reported because there is no central agency to receive the complaints.

Mark Simpson, director of property standards for Fannie Mae, noted that his organization referred 860 cases of suspected appraisal fraud to state regulators. As a whole, he was disappointed with the lack of action that states took. A third of the states "are doing a great job" in response to such Fannie Mae referrals, according to Simpson, another third "are so slow that we don’t know what to think" and the other third "takes no action whatsoever."

Vincent stated that he felt appraisers caught at fraud need to be punished.

"Fraud is an intentional and material misrepresentation," Vincent said. "A faulty or even fake appraisal is at the basis of most fraudulent mortgage transactions."

CHANGES NOTED AS U.S. POPULATION SURPASSES 300 MILLION

When the population of the United States officially passed the 300 million mark last month, statisticians went back to the last year such a milestone was reached in this country.

In 1967, when the population of this country grew to 200 million, the average price of a new home was $24,600. Today it is $290,600. Despite the over 10-fold increase in home prices, 68.9% of homes are owned by a household member today, as opposed to 63.6% in 1967.

Furthermore, while the population has increased by 50% since 39 years ago, the amount of separate households has almost doubled. There were 59 million households in the United States in 1967 and there are 113 million of them here today. Of all households, 26.6% are one-person households today, compared to 15.5% in 1967. Only 6.3% of households today include five people, compared to 10.6 percent in 1967.

QUOTES OF WIT & WISDOM

"When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary."     -- Thomas Paine

"I tend to live in the past because most of my life is there."
                                                               -- Herb Caen

"Every day you do one of two things: build health or produce disease in yourself."     --Adelle Davis

"Opera is when a guy get stabbed in the back and, instead of bleeding, he sings."     -- Ed Gardner

"The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts."
                                                                    -- John Locke

"Money is like a sixth sense, without which you can’t make a complete use of the other five."
                                                                                                   -- Somerset Maugham

"If you don’t learn to laugh at trouble, you won’t have anything to laugh at when you’re old."
                                                                                                            -- Edgar Howe

"Be wary of the man who urges an action of which he himself incurs no risk."      -- Joaquin Setanti

"I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do."
                                                                                                                   -- Willa Cather

"In science the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not the man to whom the deal first occurs."
                                                                                                                           -- Sir Francis Darwin


For previous newsletters or columns written by Charlie Elliott, MAI, SRA, president of ELLIOTT® & Company Appraisers, for mortgage publications visit our Web site at www.appraisalsanywhere.com.



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Newsletter Editor: kevin@elliottco.com	Web Site: www.appraisalsanywhere.com
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