HUD: 'Appraiser Watch' Fully Operational

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has announced that its new "Appraiser Watch" monitoring system is fully operational.Under Appraiser Watch, the Federal Housing Administration will be able to spot appraisers who are regularly connected to a high number of loan transactions that end up in default. "FHA will be able to identify appraisers who either knowingly or unintentionally place homeowners at risk for losing their homes to foreclosures because of inflated valuations," according to HUD. The new monitoring system is modeled after Credit Watch, which allows HUD to identify and suspend FHA single-family lenders with abnormally high early default rates.