A Letter From The Appraisal Institute

[RCA]

I got this on the 2/24/2025:

Account # xxxxxx
William B. Craytor, SRA

Dear Mr. Craytor,
We are personally reaching out to you to see if you would like to take advantage of a free benefit exclusively for Designated members and only currently being offered to members with an SRA designation.
The benefit, known as Advisory Guidance for Designated Members, will provide a unique educational opportunity to enhance future appraisal reports!
You may submit an eligible appraisal report for independent advisory guidance from a fellow Designated member, serving as an Advisory Guidance Counselor, who has knowledge and background in evaluating appraisal reports.
This counselor will schedule a virtual interview to verbally provide educational and constructive feedback during the session. This guidance will be verbal only and will be kept confidential by both you and the Advisory Guidance counselor.
If you are interested in this benefit or have any questions, please contact Emma Abraham, Programs Manager, AI Membership at (312) 335-4288 or experience@appraisalinstitute.org.
All the best,

Emma Abraham, Programs Manager
Appraisal Institute Membership
============

I don't know as a fact, but I imagine they are getting excited about using AI to review appraisals. Well of course you can hand your report over to Grok-3 for its opinion, - but more likely they are training their own LLM to review appraisals based on their own input criteria. And given that my reports use an advanced appraisal methodology, I have to doubt that they could handle a review to my satisfaction.

Anyway - be aware of what is coming down the pipeline. --- And Grok-3 can find simple errors in your report for sure.

Try it for yourself!

 

[Red Flint]

I do not trust Grok.

Back to the Cave.

 

[J Grant]

I got this on the 2/24/2025:

Account # xxxxxx
William B. Craytor, SRA

Dear Mr. Craytor,
We are personally reaching out to you to see if you would like to take advantage of a free benefit exclusively for Designated members and only currently being offered to members with an SRA designation.
The benefit, known as Advisory Guidance for Designated Members, will provide a unique educational opportunity to enhance future appraisal reports!
You may submit an eligible appraisal report for independent advisory guidance from a fellow Designated member, serving as an Advisory Guidance Counselor, who has knowledge and background in evaluating appraisal reports.
This counselor will schedule a virtual interview to verbally provide educational and constructive feedback during the session. This guidance will be verbal only and will be kept confidential by both you and the Advisory Guidance counselor.
If you are interested in this benefit or have any questions, please contact Emma Abraham, Programs Manager, AI Membership at (312) 335-4288 or experience@appraisalinstitute.org.
All the best,

Emma Abraham, Programs Manager
Appraisal Institute Membership
============

I don't know as a fact, but I imagine they are getting excited about using AI to review appraisals. Well of course you can hand your report over to Grok-3 for its opinion, - but more likely they are training their own LLM to review appraisals based on their own input criteria. And given that my reports use an advanced appraisal methodology, I have to doubt that they could handle a review to my satisfaction.

Anyway - be aware of what is coming down the pipeline. --- And Grok-3 can find simple errors in your report for sure.

Try it for yourself!

The benefit, known as Advisory Guidance for Designated Members, will provide a unique educational opportunity to enhance future appraisal reports!
You may submit an eligible appraisal report for independent advisory guidance from a fellow Designated member, serving as an Advisory Guidance Counselor, who has knowledge and background in evaluating appraisal reports.

What does this have to do with GROK and AI?

 

[George Hatch]

Maybe the AI should build their own appraisal-centric AI agent for their members to use in their day-to-day. I'll bet some appraisers would sign up for that. Such a feature might even attract new members.

There's no reason the Appraisal Institute couldn't compete with the commercial vendors for selling an app or adding one as a benefit for their members. Who's going to hassle an appraiser for using an Appraisal Institute app?

 

[J Grant]

Maybe the AI should build their own appraisal-centric AI agent for their members to use in their day-to-day. I'll bet some appraisers would sign up for that. Such a feature might even attract new members.

There's no reason the Appraisal Institute couldn't compete with the commercial vendors for selling an app or adding one as a benefit for their members. Who's going to hassle an appraiser for using an Appraisal Institute app?

Where does their email to the OP reference AI- (outside of AI as an abbreviation for the Appraisal Institute) . Maybe I missed something?

 

[George Hatch]

Where does their email to the OP reference AI- (outside of AI as an abbreviation for the Appraisal Institute) . Maybe I missed something?

It doesn't and I didn't say it did. Bert mentioned Grok and I responded to that idea. Unless you think I should have started a separate threat for that reaction then there's no reason for you be trying to play this gotcha with either him or me.

 

[Tom D]

The institute owned appraisal port. Do they still own it. At one time there was talk of an institute AMC.

 

[Surf Cat]

Why would an Appraisal Institute member with an SRA designation need advisory advice from another member for an appraisal?

I mean..... an SRA has to pass advanced courses and case studies to become an SRA. I could see this benefit if the SRA was moving up to CG licensure.

Everyone and anyone who has worked for AMCs knows that the AMCs don't hold an SRA in high regard. They want the newbies to control. Just look at some of the recent thread posts here..... the most recent one being withdrawing from an assignment because there were no comps in close proximity to a dump site. A basic assignment deemed too complex because the newbie didn't know how to do it.

You can bounce a complex situation off other members here on the AF for free.

 

[alebrewer]

The institute owned appraisal port. Do they still own it. At one time there was talk of an institute AMC.

AppraisalPort is owned by CoreLogic.

 

[TerryRohrer]

Why would an Appraisal Institute member with an SRA designation need advisory advice from another member for an appraisal?

I mean..... an SRA has to pass advanced courses and case studies to become an SRA. I could see this benefit if the SRA was moving up to CG licensure.

Everyone and anyone who has worked for AMCs knows that the AMCs don't hold an SRA in high regard. They want the newbies to control. Just look at some of the recent thread posts here..... the most recent one being withdrawing from an assignment because there were no comps in close proximity to a dump site. A basic assignment deemed too complex because the newbie didn't know how to do it.

You can bounce a complex situation off other members here on the AF for free.

Have you ever had an objective review of one of your reports with the intent to identify any deficiencies that, when addressed, will improve all of your reports going forward? In the early days of our Board, the State employed a licensed CG and every year they randomly selected appraisers who had to submit a report upon request that was then reviewed by the state. Never comfortable, but the few I sent in were dinged for minutia and knowing that the person who would review my reports when complaints were filed was not finding glaring errors was useful information. Of course, when Board members needed to lower the bar so they could get over it, that ended.

Since then, I have hired appraisers who I was certain would be objective and tell me what I needed to hear, rather than what I wanted to hear, to review my reports to ensure that I wasn't missing anything glaring, no matter how small, that could be a liability in court or before the Board. I'm not sure why this is being criticized. It is likely that 99% of practicing appraisers could benefit from something like this. Of course, I would expect 99% of those to react as if someone was criticizing them personally and completely miss the benefit or the spirit in which it is offered.