Retiring From Appraisal: Tail-End Coverage+

[DWiley]

Enjoy retirement.

 

[chad hampton]

Sorry you couldn’t have ended this career the way you wanted to. Unfortunately, there’s people high up in this profession that saw to it that you couldn’t do that.

 

[glenn walker]

Why not give up the AI designation and keep the CG license?

That would take some common sense and the designation is like a Medal of Honor, and you die with it no matter the cost. You can tell your grand children you held the SRA which few can obtain and that's why your special. Lmao

 

[RCA]

Sorry you couldn’t have ended this career the way you wanted to. Unfortunately, there’s people high up in this profession that saw to it that you couldn’t do that.

??

This. is pretty much the way I wanted to retire - with time left to do the kind of programming and research I was interested in doing. Although going back far enough, I didn't know it would be related to valuation. I always wanted to do my own Prolog programming - I can do it now - but then of course we have R and other interesting languages and AI.

As a contractor you often do whatever is required - you can look around and try to find contracts that are interesting, but sometimes you go for the pay. But surprisingly, I often found what I was looking for. The last contract I did was for Wells Fargo in Walnut Creek and it was Angular JS + C# Asp.Net - exactly what I was looking for. Back around 2000, when I was working at Peoplesoft (bought out by Oracle) I was interested in working with the ACE (Adaptive Communications Environment) written by Doug Schmidt now at Vanderbilt University - and found one of the few available positions at a company called Cacheflow in Union City, which lasted about a year due to the sudden availability of fiber optics which made video caching unnecessary, although it hzc other features and was swallowed up by Blue Coat Systems which needed to add video streaming capability to its security system, and then Blue Coat was swallowed up. by Symantec, which was in turn swallowed up by BroadCom.

I kind of wonder how you thought "I wanted" to end my career. Not running a large company - only one for myself, as I am not interested in management. My ideal has always been a small consulting and R&D business, or possibly producing and servicing a few single-purpose applications to eventually sell and then move on to something else.

 

[RCA]

No pressure, but when is the first volume coming out?

I'll probably correct a few typos in the current Zenodo publication, add a few more issues and put it in ValuationEngineer.com. Then I am working on a short article for the impact of length measurement errors and their impact on overall valuation accuracy. What does it cost in accuracy to round to the nearest foot like some on this forum claim they do? What is the impact of moving to engineering tape measures and measuring to the hundredth of a foot? What do you buy in accuracy. It turns out if you are really interested in keeping your error rates below 1-2%, then you should measure to the 100th of a foot. You know, you have to prove it. So, there are very many such issues related to valuation. Most appraisers don't really have a handle on accuracy, they don't really know what they are doing. They consider length accuracy as an end in itself, but it has, rather, to do with the overall impact on the accuracy of the final estimate of market value.

 

[Functional Obs]

Due to low fees and lack of GSE orders from AMCs, no interest to spend time pounding the pavement for other types of appraisal business and a need to adjust to lower income levels, I decided to let my appraisers' license expire last month.

I also declared retirement to my insurance provider LIA. As a result, I get unlimited Tail-End coverage for past appraisals (since I am over 65 and have had insurance with them for 5+ years. I figure the license + insurance was costing me $2,000/year, so that is good money saved for better things like a more advanced computer in another 2-3 years.

I will still retain my California Real Estate Brokers License, which gives me access to broker feeds and real estate listing data for basically the entire state of California.

I can retain my AI SRA Designation as a "Retired Member" at a reduced fee of about $636/year.

So, I can focus (as I have been since 2022) on research, analysis, writing articles, and developing valuation programs for the future.

In particular, I will write technical articles on advanced valuation for my new Journal "Valuation Engineering." Some of which may be interesting to forum members. Not the kind of crap you find in "The Appraisal Journal" - but very down-to-earth specific techniques and analysis - that will get into computer programming, partial differential equations, non-parametric statistics, AI, graphing, cluster analysis, GIS (QGIS), and so on - without limit. In fact, I'd just love to some Group Theory and Prolog - very old favorite topics.

Programs will be published to GitHub and probably Zenodo. Most, I presume, will be Open Source with a GPL-3 license.

And I can work without pressure, when I see fit, as much or as little as I want.

Congrats on a full career. Some of my best mentors have been retired appraisers (who thankfully still consult). Your SRA will go to Free after a certain period as well.

 

[Dale Floyd]

Due to low fees and lack of GSE orders from AMCs, no interest to spend time pounding the pavement for other types of appraisal business and a need to adjust to lower income levels, I decided to let my appraisers' license expire last month.

I also declared retirement to my insurance provider LIA. As a result, I get unlimited Tail-End coverage for past appraisals (since I am over 65 and have had insurance with them for 5+ years. I figure the license + insurance was costing me $2,000/year, so that is good money saved for better things like a more advanced computer in another 2-3 years.

I will still retain my California Real Estate Brokers License, which gives me access to broker feeds and real estate listing data for basically the entire state of California.

I can retain my AI SRA Designation as a "Retired Member" at a reduced fee of about $636/year.

So, I can focus (as I have been since 2022) on research, analysis, writing articles, and developing valuation programs for the future.

In particular, I will write technical articles on advanced valuation for my new Journal "Valuation Engineering." Some of which may be interesting to forum members. Not the kind of crap you find in "The Appraisal Journal" - but very down-to-earth specific techniques and analysis - that will get into computer programming, partial differential equations, non-parametric statistics, AI, graphing, cluster analysis, GIS (QGIS), and so on - without limit. In fact, I'd just love to some Group Theory and Prolog - very old favorite topics.

Programs will be published to GitHub and probably Zenodo. Most, I presume, will be Open Source with a GPL-3 license.

And I can work without pressure, when I see fit, as much or as little as I want.

Just curious why you’d retire your license but keep your SRA annual $636 dues. I think I’d do just the opposite, and stop paying SRA dues before I’d stop paying for my license.

 

[Zoe]

I wish you well Sir. I know you have been through hell a little on this forum. I gave you some of it with reason.

I wish you very well Sir.

I am still a little concerned why your reason is for retiring based on your original post.

Quoting you:

"Due to low fees and lack of GSE orders from AMCs, no interest to spend time pounding the pavement for other types of appraisal business and a need to adjust to lower income levels, I decided to let my appraisers' license expire last month.

I also declared retirement to my insurance provider LIA. As a result, I get unlimited Tail-End coverage for past appraisals (since I am over 65 and have had insurance with them for 5+ years. I figure the license + insurance was costing me $2,000/year, so that is good money saved for better things like a more advanced computer in another 2-3 years.

I will still retain my California Real Estate Brokers License, which gives me access to broker feeds and real estate listing data for basically the entire state of California.

I can retain my AI SRA Designation as a "Retired Member" at a reduced fee of about $636/year.

So, I can focus (as I have been since 2022) on research, analysis, writing articles, and developing valuation programs for the future.

In particular, I will write technical articles on advanced valuation for my new Journal "Valuation Engineering." Some of which may be interesting to forum members. Not the kind of crap you find in "The Appraisal Journal" - but very down-to-earth specific techniques and analysis - that will get into computer programming, partial differential equations, non-parametric statistics, AI, graphing, cluster analysis, GIS (QGIS), and so on - without limit. In fact, I'd just love to some Group Theory and Prolog - very old favorite topics.

Programs will be published to GitHub and probably Zenodo. Most, I presume, will be Open Source with a GPL-3 license.

And I can work without pressure, when I see fit, as much or as little as I want."

 

[Zoe]

I really want to know more about the AMC reference. You know I love commingling of fees and AMCs. LOL

 

[chad hampton]

guess I was confused by your first paragraph that said due to low fees and lack of GSE orders from AMCs, I’m retiring.

I understand that position, it’s a difficult one that we were all put into by the unethical players at the top. You even had one of them congratulate you on a retirement decision that his employers policies led you to make. Notice they don’t say- please reconsider, the GSEs want the best, most experienced appraisers out there in this profession.

If you have millions stocked away and you’re retiring on your terms, then congrats. If I had a $5M nest egg I might do the same right now too. I’d Leave this 3rd rate profession behind too.

Part of the reason I decided to get into this career was when im 65, 70, 75, I can work as much or as little as I want. It’s a way to still make 2k, $5k, or 15k a month depending on what we want to do.

I don’t agree with all of your viewpoints on this board, but I have no doubt you are a true professional when it comes to appraising. You should be the type this profession wants to keep around as long as you want to be here. And you shouldn’t have to work in a system that was manipulated to the point where the cheapest bunch of **** that can get thrown on a form wins the $275 order.

Would be nice to hear a story from an appraiser in their 70s who decides to retire that passes his 30 year long bank clients to another appraiser they know and trust.

But I do wish you well. Sincerely do. Just always makes me upset when good people leave this profession due to the state it’s in.