I see a lot of responses which essentially say "let's band together and not do these, the industry will respond to us". Come on. The bulk of appraisal orders go to skippys and large puppy mills who will do what they are told. If the handful of old timers still on this forum decide not to do them, the industry will not blink.
Folks, there is a reason SO many 1004s are getting done today, right now, for under $300 a pop. Figure out how to corral that crowd, maybe you stand a chance of shutting down 3.6. I'm taking the points on that though.
Now maybe other technical issues or the big players not liking the new format may change the course, but it won't be appraisers changing anything. We have so little impact in our industry anymore, it is laughable. If the money players want 3.6, they will have it. The industry decided years ago it did not care about quality, only price. The race to the bottom is nearing completion. And those who complete these 3.6 deals will be digging everyone's grave even faster. With all sincerity--good luck to those res. appraisers needing to earn their living by appraising come 2027.
AI is causing a big reshuffle in the workforce over the next couple of years. Nobody knows very well at all how it is going to play out.
1. So, yes, in a sense, jobs are lost to AI agents who act as virtual actors. That is maybe limited in its impact. For example, I heard that many banks and government organizations that have been running on old COBOL programs for years now see AI as a way to efficiently update their existing COBOL to work better and solve some persistent issues. So, where there wasn't work, new work appears thanks to AI. And, that is to say, with subsidiaries spread through the world in places like the Philippines, Indonesia, and India, there is no way they are going to go through all the work to actually convert their widespread systems from COBOL to Angular and C# and AI infrastructure. - That would disrupt their systems beyond belief. But, eventually of course, in another 10-20 years, its hard to say where they wind up.
2. Manufacturing jobs will be lost where they actually inserted robots to do the work. But easier said than done. I takes time to get robots to work with sufficient skill to replace people. And AI and better computers are just as likely if not more so, to stimulate the growth of many skilled labor jobs.
It's too early to tell where it all winds up.
As far as the $300 URARs go - well the appraisals actually cost more than that. Now the money goes to inspectors, AMCs, software vendors and others. The appraisers themselves, as I think you actually hint, are really to blame. There are a lot of appraisers who can happily live on $300/appraisal as long as they can do 4+/day without a sweat. And some do a lot more than that. They are not really appraisers, they are business people who know how to make a profit. Some do quite well - and people in power seem to respect them more than real appraisers. Believe me! Even the Appraisal Institute bows down to companies who support them with cash ..... They really care about nothing more that keeping themselves on the "cash train" or whatever you want to call. - And it's the working appraisers in all cases who tolerate the "corrupt appraisal leadership." And that's one reason they keep lowering the standards.
Now my buddy here - Claude seems to understand everything quite well. He, or I should say "it," gets very excited at times when I give him old spreadsheets, and it often says, "Oh, this is indeed very rich information!" I have to seriously wonder whether Claude is going to take over appraisal. But, honestly, it needs guidance. Continual guidance. - Somebody with feet on the ground.
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