After a 6 month long investigation, the Associated Press has found that mortgage fraud is still being committed despite new laws being made against this, and it seems as though officials are doing nothing. Marc Weinberg, the former director at the federal agency in charge of watching over the appraisal industry, told the Associated Press, that "The system is completely broken,...It's amazing that the system ever worked at all."

The AP after ending their investigation found that since 2005, over 12 dozen states and U.S. territories have broken federal rules by not investigating/resolving appraisal complaints, thus allowing the corrupt appraisers to continue working and defrauding the public. They also concluded that the state appraisal boards and federal agency to oversee them are drastically understaffed, with as low as one or no investigator to handle incoming complaints.

The system is not working as it was supposed to. Theoretically, an appraiser should get an order from a Realtor or lender/broker to inspect a property. They would then develop a realistic estimate value, which would be used by banks to set the home value as loan collateral. This estimate is supped to be done with pressure or bribing, etc. However, over 3 dozen appraisers interviewed by AP, said they felt pushed to inflate property values, due to lenders/brokers asking them to ¨hit a number.¨ Many provided documents proving this to the AP, as well as documents showing that they had complained numerous times to the agencies that are supposed to regulate this kinds of occurrences.

The problems affecting the regulation of appraisals and pressure to inflate them, led Andrew Cuomo, NY Attn. General. to make a deal in March, with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Taking effect in 2009, this deal will make an overseer for appraisals, called the Independent Valuation Protection Institute. Costing Fannie and Freddie $24 million, the organization will take complaints from consumers and appraisers, monitor the enforcement of said complaints, and report to Cuomo´s office. While it is a step, Gary Taylor, a NY appraiser and part of the Appraisal Foundation board, feels that it will just end up repeating the past errors and deficiencies created by past regulations. "There has to be effective enforcement of some sort. There has to be reality to it,...What are you going to do if there is pressure on appraisers? How are you going to penalize someone who puts that pressure on appraisers? Who's going to do it? Who's going to enforce it? They need to have that or it won't work."