The annual number of foreclosures in Vance County, N.C. nearly quadrupled between 1998 and 2001. Manufactured homes, including at least 25 in Creative Real Estate subdivisions, accounted for most of the 200 foreclosures last year. ...I don't know where they got those numbers," Creative Real Estate owner Donald Gupton said about the difference between a $115,000 appraisal received by his company for a home and the $52,000 value listed at the tax office. "Whatever it closes for should be the amount that goes on the tax record."
A Wake County firm handled most of the appraisal work for Creative Real Estate in the past few years. But that firm said it is not doing work for Creative now because the firm is too busy in the Raleigh-Durham area.
We're not doing any appraisals up in Vance County. It got to be too much," Michael Kindt said. "I stopped about a year and a half ago." Kindt works for the Hinch Appraisal Group in Raleigh. He said Kevin Hinch, also an appraiser for the firm, "stopped too because the bulk of our business is down in this area." Mr. Kindt works for the Hinch Appraisal Group in Raleigh. He said the high number of foreclosures in Vance County in the past couple of years changed the market, resulting in a lower assessment at the tax office.
Kindt said he always enters a property and never conducts a drive-by appraisal. "I always go inside," he said. He couldn't explain how he had placed a fireplace that didn't exist inside one of the mobile homes he appraised in Vance County. The North Carolina Appraisal Board received a joint complaint against Kindt and Hinch in 1999 for overvaluing a particular property, but the claim was dismissed later.
In 2000, Hinch had another complaint filed against him and was found guilty by the board. The Appraisal Board issued a consent order requiring him to complete a standards course and a sales comparison course by June 30, 2001. The problems included falsified down payment information on credit applications and misrepresentations about the terms, the price or the home itself.
Rachel Dollar, the editor of Mortgage Fraud Blog is an attorney and Certified Mortgage Banker who handles litigation for lending institutions and secondary market investors.