Appraiser XSites are getting (more) organized when it comes to site Theme selection. Themes are the look and feel of your XSite — the color scheme, layout, graphics, headers, and so on. You probably know you can change yours, throughout your whole site, with just a few clicks. (If you didn't, now is a great time to give it a spin!)

With more than 200 more Theme templates available than there were just two years ago, we've introduced a new, better organized way to choose your site's Theme. To see it, log into the administrative area of your website, select the XSites icon from the top toolbar, then select the Wizard icon from the drop down selections. You'll now be on Step 1 of the Wizard and see the new way your Themes are organized.

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Throughout the months of February and March, we're going to release even more new Themes. Today you're getting 30 new ones to pick from. And every couple weeks moving forward, we'll release 20-30 new ones so by the end of March, you'll have around 120 new Themes for a grand total of 325.

No other website provider is doing this much to make sure their customers convey the best image possible. Be sure to check out the new Themes every week this month. You're sure to find something you like. Change Themes as frequently as you like — for holidays, seasons, or just to keep things interesting and give your site a fresh look.

Note that your XSite level determines which Themes you have access to. Check your level type by looking in the upper left hand corner of your XSites' administrative area.

Give SmartMerge a chance to save you untold typing and time

Aurora users: Still cloning? We hope not, that would be like taking digital photos but then printing them out on photo paper and taping them to addenda instead of manipulating and inserting them directly into your reports.

One of the consensus favorite new features of Aurora users is the new SmartMerge function. You can still "clone" in Aurora, but that will overwrite absolutely eveything in your current report with the old one. Better to use the robust SmartMerge tool to save yourself time and typing. Here's how.

To use the SmartMerge feature, just hit File, New, and hit the Merge button on the tool bar. Select just portions of an old form from which you want to take some part — an addendum, a neighborhood description, site comments — or you can select "mark all" with a click. Then choose either to merge selected data and forms from the old report, forms and/or addenda only, or clone (overwrite) in full. Your new report is populated with the data/forms addenda from the old assignment that you've chosen.

When you think about it for about five seconds, this is the only way "cloning" is at all useful when you want to merge from an old (pre-November, 2005) Fannie form. Makes you wonder why no other software company lets you do it this way!

The ability to import just parts you need from old reports, rather than everything, saves you untold time over a number of assignments. Take a spin if you haven't, starting with the online training videos we have available here.

Countrywide, Full Spectrum make cost approach optional

LandSafe announced it was revising its policy, implemented with the official introduction of the new Fannie Mae forms, requiring a cost approach analysis on all reports.

The cost approach will still be required on all manufactured home (1004C) appraisals except where FHA requirements might dictate otherwise. It will also be required for all LandSafe "National Accounts," that is, clients other than Countrywide and Full Spectrum Lending.

Countrywide and Full Spectrum will now no longer require the cost approach on single-family 1004 or multi-family 1025 reports "unless this approach is necessary to make your analysis convincing and credible to our reviewers," the company said.

It cautioned, "If you are requested to furnish a Cost Approach, it is a condition of the assignment and it is required and must be furnished."

Countrywide Financial Corp. was the nation's largest originator of mortgage loans in the third quarter of 2005, with a volume more than double that of the third-ranked lender.

More information is available for LandSafe appraisers at the company's Appraisal Services site.

New efforts to reinvigorate FHA

The Bush administration moved after the President's State of the Union address, which only briefly touched on housing in the context of rebuilding the New Orleans area, to re-introduce FHA proposals that would make more people eligible for insured mortgages.

Possibly the most fundamental proposed change would see the FHA pricing insurance premiums according to risk. Premiums would be based on borrowers' credit scores and the amount and source of the downpayment, the administration's budget analysis said. Currently, premiums paid by higher credit-score homeowners subsidize those for lower credit scores.

The proposal would also allow the FHA to underwrite 100 percent of a home's purchase price and closing costs for borrowers with strong credit. Shakier credit borrowers could see initially higher insurance premiums decline as they made regular payments on time under a second proposal.

During the recent housing boom, the FHA's share of mortgages has steadily declined as lenders have relaxed credit standards and more creative subprime loans have been sold to lower credit-score consumers. Efforts to revive the agency's role in the mortgage market are a positive for appraisers, since FHA loans require a full appraisal.

In a more under-the-radar move to eliminate barriers to using FHA, HUD has rescinded its requirement of fixed itemized closing costs. In a Mortgagee Letter dated January 27, the agency said the move was "part of FHA's efforts to align its business process with industry practice."

Inflexible pricing did not account for differences in geographic markets, HUD acknowledged. It cautioned that FHA will still not allow "markups," that is, only the actual cost of the inspection or other service may b charged to the borrower.

"FHA believes that by no longer prescribing borrower's paid closing costs, a significant impediment to the use of its programs has been eliminated," the agency said.