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What is Appraisal Fraud?
Appraisal Fraud is the intentional misrepresentation of the value of a home using an appraiser’s statement. Appraisals are necessary for large loans and real estate transactions, and appraisal fraud is common.
Fraud can be committed in this manner by the appraiser or by a person falsifying an appraiser’s statement. A common example would be overstating the value of a home so that a borrower can get a larger home equity loan.
An appraiser hired by a selling real estate agent might also bump the value up to help the sellers make more money. It is easy to see how fraud could be committed in such situations, and it wouldn’t take much effort to commit such a crime.
Actions to prevent exposure to such fraud would be hiring multiple appraisers, or finding a trustworthy and impartial appraiser with lots of good references.
Most states have an active association or bureau meant to regulate the actions of appraisers, which can record and handle complaints and accusations for consumer protection.
What is an "Ex-Dividend"?
Ex-Dividend is a classification on a stock that indicates the dividend payable is to the seller of the stock, not the buyer
What is a "spread"?
Spread has several meanings in finance but the most general usage is between the bid and the ask prices for a security in trading
What are the pros and cons of hedge fund investing?
Hedge funds are sometimes the highest-earning investment vehicles, and sometimes they do that much worse than everything else
How Can I Establish a Money Purchase/Profit Sharing Plan?
A written plan document must be established and distributed to all employees notifying them of the plan and of all
How Do I Calculate my Net Worth?
Calculating your net worth is a simple and worthwhile endeavor, and should be done once a year to measure your progress
What is commodity pice risk?
Commodity price risk means that an agricultural or mining business might not be able to predict the revenue generated
What is Income Inequality?
Income inequality is the difference in the average income of the lower/middle class and the upper class
What is a Satoshi Cycle?
This term was coined quite recently, describing the relationship between bitcoin prices and Google searches for bitcoin
How to Trade Moving Averages: The Death Cross
The Death Cross is a chart pattern indicating when a security’s short-term moving average crosses underneath its long-term counterpart
What is the Equity Risk Premium?
The Equity Risk Premium (aka, Equity Premium) is the expected return of the stock market over the risk-free rate (U.S. Treasuries).