With Senators Watching, Federal Appraisal Board Appoints New Head
The embattled federal agency that oversees the appraisal industry has a new acting head.
The board of directors for the Appraisal Subcommittee unanimously approved Frederick Griefer as acting executive director, effective Aug. 10. He’s the third person to hold the position in a month.
The ASC board announced the appointment in a brief statement Wednesday afternoon. Griefer most recently held a regional leadership position at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Matt Ponzar exited the ASC executive director position, which he had held since the beginning of the year, in July just before a Bisnow investigation revealed pervasive agency mismanagement that had drawn scrutiny from two U.S. Senators.
Luke Brown, a longtime associate director at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., replaced Ponzar. At the time, Brown was also vice chair and acting chair of ASC. He’s currently not listed among the senior staff on ASC’s website and didn’t respond to a request for comment Thursday morning.
In its announcement selecting Griefer, the board highlighted his role as the director of the Santa Ana Homeownership Center, a California office with more than 100 staff, including appraisers, credit underwriters and quality assurance professionals.
The homeownership center is a HUD agency that oversees the Federal Housing Administration’s single-family operations for the Western U.S. It’s not clear if Griefer will stay on at HUD while leading ASC.
“The Board is committed to ensuring the ASC successfully achieves its important statutory mission of overseeing the real estate appraisal regulatory framework for federally related transactions,” the statement said.
ASC has been without a permanent director for more than seven months and has lost 30% of its staff. The federal oversight committee is tasked with monitoring state appraisal programs and administering grants. It was created after the savings and loan crisis in the 1980s to ensure that appraisals were meeting consistent, reliable standards across the U.S.
Despite a lack of permanent leadership and a shrinking headcount, the agency has been fighting to rescind block grant funding that was meant to grow the profession, which is understaffed and facing a demographic crisis.
Last month, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat from Nevada, and Sen. Mike Rounds, a Republican from South Dakota, sent a letter to the agency that oversees the ASC expressing concern about the staffing cuts, the committee’s failure to hold mandatory public meetings and litigation alleging fraud in the appraisal certification process.
The senators asked Federal Financial Institutions Examinations Council Chair Michelle Bowman to exercise the council's oversight authority over the ASC and determine why the subcommittee has no permanent chair or director and whether it had made changes to its supervision process.
“The long-term stability of the ASC is critical to the residential and commercial real estate markets,” Cortez Masto said in a statement to Bisnow last month. “I hope to hear very soon from FFIEC Chair Bowman outlining a plan to curb the chaos at this vital agency.”
Despite abruptly leaving the executive director position, Ponzar is still listed on ASC’s website as its general counsel. His LinkedIn profile reflects his exit from the acting executive director position but says he remains at ASC.
The senators gave the ASC board until Aug. 29 to respond to their letter.
