As you can imagine, this has created quite the buzz in appraiser circles. The reason there even is an agreement is because AG Cuomo wants to sue Fannie and Freddie (and a lot of other lenders) for their lending practices. In exchange for agreeing to change the way they do business, Cuomo will agree to drop his suits.
It looks like there will be some collateral damage to some innocents, and some borrowers are certainly going to be unhappy with the results. But the general concensus among most appraisers is that any steps taken to separate the appraisers from the loan originators will be helpful over the long term.
It is no coincidence that the lenders with the cleanest loan pools are those who played by the rules, did their underwriting, and separated their appraisers from the loan officers as much as possible. Of course, these lenders were also heavily penalized during the runup by losing the competitive edge.
If the agreement does go into effect, I would anticipate many of the other lenders to sign on as well.
