As I mentioned the only reason the setter is called after event handler is that you are using value change event. If I'm not mistaken myfaces has a feature that enables valuechange events behave like action events(button).
I think he means [1]. valueChangeNotifier - Calls a custom valueChangeEvent method during MODEL_UPDATE Phase of the Faces Lifecycle [1] http://www.irian.at/myfaces-sandbox/valueChangeNotifier.jsf
