Accusations of Inappropriate Pressure by WaMu on Appraisers

I am so not shocked that Jeniffer Wertz is claiming that claiming she was blacklisted last year for providing a housing market forecast that was too gloomy.

In the lawsuit, which was filed a week ago, Wertz says she completed appraisals on two houses in May and then quickly got a call from a WaMu sales manager demanding she change her outlook to "stable" so a loan could be approved.

The WaMu sales manager also demanded Wertz change her appraisal process to produce higher prices for the properties she was evaluating, according to Wertz's lawyer Stephen Danz. The higher an appraisal comes out, the more likely it is a home loan will get approved.

When Wertz refused to comply, she claims the sales manager threatened to block her from doing future appraisal work for the bank. A month later, Wertz's suit says, a third-party appraisal request assigner told her WaMu would no longer accept her work.

I have no doubt that this is true, and that this was endemic in the lending industry among most, if not all of the major players.

Andrew Cuomo is alleging that WaMu's pressure on "title company First American and its appraisal unit, eAppraiseIT" is why they were basically falsifying appriasals, and The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Office of Thrift Supervision has opened an investigation.

I think that it will be more difficult to find a major lender who did not do this than to find one who did.