DSNews delivers stories, ideas, links, companies, people, events, and videos impacting the mortgage default servicing industry.
Issue link: http://digital.dsnews.com/i/1133197
22 ADDRESSING MANUFACTURED HOUSING'S APPRAISAL NEEDS Freddie Mac and the Appraisal Institute recently announced a partnership to help real estate appraisers to value manufactured homes. e training through this partnership aims to provide practical appraisal training to all appraisers, as well as specifically- targeted training and case studies to address manufactured housing valuation assignments for Freddie Mac's CHOICEHome program. Scott Reuter, Chief Appraiser and Director of Single-Family Valuation at Freddie Mac spoke to DS News about why this training was needed and what it entails. WHAT WAS THE REASON BEHIND PROVIDING TRAINING TO APPRAISERS ON MANUFACTURED HOMES? is program fits under our Duty to Serve initiative, which was mandated by Congress through our regulator the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA). e Duty to Serve statute requires both government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) to provide leadership in three underserved areas. One is rural housing, second is affordable housing preservation, and third is manufactured housing. Under this initiative, we started with the CHOICEHome Program, where manufactured homes are built to certain specifications that are in addition to what a normal manufactured home might have. e ultimate aim of this program is to increase the standardization between site-built and manufactured homes as well as increase the volume of manufactured homes. e pillar of the CHOICEHome products is the minimum specifications that go above and beyond the normal manufactured home. ey include interior drywall throughout a 512 roof pitch and energy-efficient packages. e specifications under this program also include these homes being placed on a permanent foundation as well as other site-built-type features such as a garage and carport. rough the CHOICEHome Program, we're focusing on introducing high- quality affordable housing options into the marketplace. And that's where the appraisal training for manufactured homes comes into the picture. From a practical standpoint, we thought that one of the key elements of setting this program up for success was to understand how this may be met by appraisers when they're valuing these homes. WHAT ARE SOME OF THE CHALLENGES THAT APPRAISERS FACE WHILE VALUING THESE HOMES, AND HOW WILL THE TRAINING HELP THEM? e CHOICEHome Program is currently in its pilot stage, and we're envisioning that these homes are most likely going to be introduced primarily in the rural market. A practicing appraiser faces challenges on a good day with site-built homes in rural settings, let alone the kind of a specialized manufactured home that's built to all these higher specifications. So from a policy perspective, we're allowing flexibility so the appraiser can cascade their