Business mag criticizes NovaStar’s new tack

NovaStar Financial, a former pimp in the subprime-mortgage game, has reinvented itself. Last August, the Kansas City company bought a business that manages home appraisers.

Appraisal management companies serve as an intermediary between lending institutions and appraisers. They’ve become more relevant now that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have adopted a new code of conduct that prohibits mortgage brokers from directly hiring appraisers.

That NovaStar stands to benefit from what is ostensibly a reform looks strange to Business Week. The magazine recently published a story noting that “some of the same subprime players that helped inflate the real estate bubble in

the first place” are now being counted on to improve the way the industry functions.

Scott Haslam, the CEO of StreetLinks, the appraisal company NovaStar acquired and rebranded, defends the arrangement. “We have gone through the fire and come out better for it,” he told Business Week.

StreetLinks is hiring. Alas, the unit is based in Indianapolis.