No College Degree for Cert Generals or Residential Appraisers

[J Grant]

In the United States, law and medicine are structured as post-graduate professional fields—rather than direct-entry undergraduate programs—to ensure applicants possess a high level of academic maturity, critical thinking skills, and a solid foundation in core sciences (for medicine) or analytical skills (for law). This system, heavily influenced by the 1910 Flexner Report, aims to "weed out" students who cannot handle the immense workload, resulting in lower dropout rates and higher quality practitioners.
Here is why a bachelor's degree is required:

1. Academic Maturity and "Weeding Out"

• Ensuring Capability: The curriculum in law and medical schools is intensive. An undergraduate degree serves as a filter, ensuring applicants have demonstrated they can succeed in a demanding academic environment.
• Lowering Dropout Rates: Research has shown that applicants who enter professional training with a bachelor's degree have significantly lower dropout rates than those entering directly from high school.
• Higher Level of Study: Professional schools teach at a doctoral level; they do not assume the student has already mastered the foundational knowledge needed to start, requiring a 4-year degree to prepare.

2. Foundational Knowledge

• Medicine: Medical schools require specific pre-medical coursework (biology, chemistry, physics, math) to ensure students can handle the rigor of medical school, particularly in areas like pharmacology and biochemistry.
• Law: While law schools do not require specific classes, they look for strong critical thinking, research, and high-level writing skills, which are typically refined during undergraduate studies in subjects like history, philosophy, or political science.

3. The "Well-Rounded" Professional Philosophy

• Broad Education: The American system values a "liberal arts" foundation, believing that doctors and lawyers need to be well-rounded individuals, not just technical specialists.
• Interdisciplinary Perspectives: Undergraduate studies allow students to gain perspectives in sociology, ethics, and humanities, which are crucial for treating patients or understanding complex legal cases.

4. Psychological Maturity

• Handling High-Stakes Environments: Medicine requires dealing with the "ick" factor, death, and disease, while law involves high-stakes litigation. An undergraduate degree provides necessary time for personal development and maturity before facing these intense professional environments.

5. Historical and Regulatory Factors

• Licensure Standards: In the U.S., the American Bar Association (law) and various medical accrediting bodies established that a bachelor's degree is a minimum standard for ensuring professional quality, largely to move away from low-quality "fly-by-night" schools.
• Pre-20th Century Context: Prior to these reforms, medical schools were often unaccredited. The requirement for a bachelor's degree ensures that professionals have been rigorously vetted.

Summary Table of Rationale

 

[George Hatch]

This was the point I was making; stakeholders see that people are not entering the field for good reason on the res side, the proof is the anemic trickle applying for or graduation PAREA.

It is common sense that the best and the brightest, and the solid middle of decent, quality people, won't train for a field with the terribly low compensation and poor working conditions of the AMC's. The reality is that mortgage lending work remains the dominant p

Their choice was to correct the fees on the AMC side to attract and keep quality people on the res mortgage side, or keep lowering the entry /education and experience bar. They chose option two.

aka inadequate ROI.

Face it, appraiser lives don't matter to these users.

2009 is calling to remind us. Refer to tagline below
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[Terrel L. Shields]

That is why most professions, and higher/officer ranks in the military and law enforcement, want a college degree

Much education does not translate to higher cognitive skills always. The "working" degree in Geology was considered to be an MS. A PhD meant research or academia but paid less than industry paid for an MS. The best geologist and most computer literate one I ever knew never went to graduate school but was using plotting software in the 1990s that he wrote to predict oil wells that had been abandoned prematurely, and then his partner and he would lease those "abandoned" wells and recomplete them. Made a ton of money. One of my other college buds drilled 34 successful wells with only 1 dry hole. That was an unheard-of success rate for an explorationist. He had a BS only.

Appraising is not a science. Nor is it really an "art" (we've had that argument before.) It is a process and once the process is learned then you either have the moxie to solve the problem or you don't. Take some of those mind-bending puzzles like a Rubik's cube. Some people simply cannot solve these while others are intuitively fast as solving three-dimensional problems. We've all heard the term educated fool. It applies. Some people don't have the mental skillset regardless their education level. GPA scores are not a substitute for competence.

 

[J Grant]

aka inadequate ROI.

Face it, appraiser lives don't matter to these users.

2009 is calling to remind us. Refer to tagline below
v
v
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Appraisers' lives comprise the profession, which is the only thing standing between the profiteers and the protection of housing markets and the public trust. Scoff at that all you want and accuse appraisers of being hypocrites for mentioning it. Of course, a reasonable ROI is needed to sustain a middle-class or even a working-income level to attract and retain quality people. A reasonable income, protection from a badly skewed supply and demand to ensure independence and a sense of calling must exist for a viable profession. Without being able to fulfil a mission of public trust, appraisal is a job and not a profession.

In a job, people do what the boss or client wants regardless of the outcome. In a profession, the practitioners might object to or even refuse an unethical or poor practice demand from a boss or client. That is what the AMC system and stakeholders are destroying. They call it appraisal friction, and a speedbump. They actually use that language.

With regard to the res lending side, a segment of appraisers have lender or wholesale clients outside of the AMC realm, which I hope can continue. I doubt the stakeholders want it to continue which is a bleak thought and I wish it were not the case.

 

[George Hatch]

Read what I said:

"Face it, appraiser lives don't matter to these users."​

(and yes, I worded it that way specifically to cut you off in advance)

That's an observation, not a scoff nor a criticism of the appraisal profession. Not even you can deny the reality of that observation. The other observation you can't deny is that so far we haven't seen any evidence of these low-fee appraisals causing significant damage to the users of these appraisals. Those damages may exist but we aren't seeing reports of it, leastwise not at the significant levels.

 

[J Grant]

Read what I said:

"Face it, appraiser lives don't matter to these users."

I read what you said. You refuse to acknowledge what their disregard for what you call appraisers' lives ( the profession) has on markets. Lecturing appraisers on the obvious, such as the above, as if we are naive children, instead of holding the users accountable for their action speaks for itself.

 

[George Hatch]

Who else but the users is accountable for their actions?

As for the markets, that actually is not part of our job description. Besides, at the moment many of those markets are in decline. Are you blaming AMC appraisers for pricing declines as hard are you have been blaming them for price increases? Because so far I haven't seen that kind of consistency in your reasoning.

 

[djd09]

Who else but the users is accountable for their actions?

well duh...the taxpayers

 

[J Grant]

Read what I said:

"Face it, appraiser lives don't matter to these users."​

(and yes, I worded it that way specifically to cut you off in advance)

That's an observation, not a scoff nor a criticism of the appraisal profession. Not even you can deny the reality of that observation. The other observation you can't deny is that so far we haven't seen any evidence of these low-fee appraisals causing significant damage to the users of these appraisals. Those damages may exist but we aren't seeing reports of it, leastwise not at the significant levels.

I am not trying to deny the observation's reality.

It is worse that "appraisers' lives" don't matter; a segment of the users, in particular the GSEs, have actively worked to dismantle and neuter the appraisal profession. Have we not seen any evidence.. They control the "evidence"- appraisals and Waiver valuations are not made public -(few of whom would know what they were looking at, but we would know, and we do not get to see them) A number of RE agents and loan officers dislike the AMC system but the stakeholders ignore them as well. Only the upper-tier shareholders or top management count. The outcome is not seen until years after the damage has already been done .

We have seen prices well outstrip incomes, and more residential properties go into the ownership of LLCs and investors. We have seen only a trickle of appraisers enter the appraisal license res side of the field despite continual lowering of requreiements and many competent appraisers refuse to do AMC work. Evidence is there, but profit-making is first until any cumulative damage is so great that it calls for a correction.

 

[George Hatch]

The name of the game for a lender is to avoid the gross overvaluation. Contributing to a safe/sound lending decision. That's their benchmark, not "immaculate" reports. As long as a sloppy/horrible looking appraisal doesn't conclude to a gross overvaluation then its arguably sufficient to purpose from a legitimate lending perspective. If a cosmetically perfect looking report concludes to a gross overvalulation then thats going to be a fail WRT the lender operating in good faith. They're users reviewing reports to make a decision about the property, not appraisers reviewing reports to form an opinion of the quality of the report.

If we accept the point that some overvaluations will exist even among the direct engagements, how many *additional* overvaluations can we attribute to AMC -related causes? How much worse are the AMC appraisals than the direct engagement appraisals.

I don't know what the answer is to that question. I don't know if there is a noticeable difference between the two groups, and if so how much of a difference. I'm open to the possibility that there is a difference and also open to the possibility that it's a big difference. But so far I'm not seeing any evidence of it beyond our anecdotes. Just like I didn't see any evidence indicating to widespread appraiser bias.