Advice on entering the Real Estate Appraisal Field.

[Fernando]

I know of one CG appraiser who seems to be doing fine. He's younger than me and uses more technology in his appraisals and he goes everywhere in metro area. He seems to have lots of energy. Good for him.
Then there's this fellow CG appraiser who I had occasional contact over past 20 years. I left 3 messages over past few months and no response.
I know commercial appraisals are fewer and I'm hoping the lack of work hasn't cause dire complications.
I'll reach out again and see if everything's fine.

 

[RCA]

Hi, I'm Eric, a 52-year-old entrepreneur and long-time small business owner. I am interested in becoming a certified real estate appraiser, and I would appreciate some advice from the forum on the best pathway forward. I'm seeking recommendations on the best schools, how to obtain my 1500 hours of work under another appraiser's mentorship, and what my expected salary might look like. Additionally, I'm curious about the long-term occupational outlook for real estate appraisers. Thanks in advance, Eric in Georgia

Don't. Maybe fun work .... but it will make you poor - unless it is just a side job.

You would think appraisal is important, because it is to you when you are refinancing your home. And it is also interesting. But the reality is that in most cases, it is just regarded as a rubber stamp on transactions where the transaction price is pretty much already agreed upon. For refinance the loan officer just wants a rubber stamp, because in most cases he is not at all concerned whether the house ever goes into foreclosure.

Now that isn't to say there aren't some people around who would really really like to get a good estimate on the market value of some property - but are not so interested that they would pay more than they would for the rubber stamp. But there are some, very few, who would pay for the effort - but they are very few and very far between. Construction is probably an exception, - construction projects have to be watched closely by the banks/lenders.

Now you most likely won't listen to anybody - just like the appraisers on this forum never listened to similar advice they received maybe 20 years ago (me included). You will just assume, it must be such a good thing that established apprasers don't want any competition. To be honest they don't need competition. But it is good advice, - when it comes to from a serious appraiser. And any appraiser who tries to convince you that appraisal is a good career path is selling education or trying to get you to work for him or her as a cheap trainee. ... Some, do both.

Now, honestly 20 years ago there were appraisers who did 8 appraisals/day and hired trainees to do maybe 20-30+/day and they did become pretty well-off. But you can't be too interested in quality in that case. You just focus on volume and doing enough to keep yourself out of trouble -- which a good number failed to do over the years. But back then, some appraisers did go through periods where they were making over $500K/year - so I was told - maybe it was a bit exaggerated - but not too much. Such appraisers, I know a few, were pretty sharp and ruthless to boot. Some lost their license for good, some lost them temporarily and so on and so forth.

 

[Functional Obs]

Hi, I'm Eric, a 52-year-old entrepreneur and long-time small business owner. I am interested in becoming a certified real estate appraiser, and I would appreciate some advice from the forum on the best pathway forward. I'm seeking recommendations on the best schools, how to obtain my 1500 hours of work under another appraiser's mentorship, and what my expected salary might look like. Additionally, I'm curious about the long-term occupational outlook for real estate appraisers. Thanks in advance, Eric in Georgia

Find a mentor. Take your classes in person when you can. Make friends with your instructors and classmates. When you graduate, focus on non-lender work. Know that you won't make any real money as a trainee, so have another income stream.

 

[Tom D]

appraising is like farming. have a couple of good year crops, then comes the no rain, no crops, dust bowl for a couple of years. the good money your made from your bumper years are eaten up by the drought. overall, it averages out not so great, especially if you haven't saved for the downturns. but i like a lot here love what we do and the freedom. the freedom was better long ago. most of you will say hvcc killed the business. i say it was killed with certification went it went from 700 appraisers in the state to 3000 appraisers in this state. this was the nails on the coffin. hvcc was the dirt being dropped on your dead profession casket.
but, i think it is a great part time, after retirement, job. better than being bored and some extra money. don't need it, but gives me something to do and get out of the house. i live in big city urban row home. ain't no gardening to do, or maybe some fruit tree to raise.

 

[Tim Hicks (Texas)]

You can survive in this business. You just have to be realistic. Very few appraisers make big money, but you can carve out a decent living if you want to work hard at it. Many of the older appraisers don't realize that turn times are a key. They will let appraisals sit on their desk and they will get around to them when they damn well please. Lenders, AMCs, individuals appreciate quick turn times and quality work. Quality in their minds, not yours. Never sell your soul to a client, it will always come back to get you eventually. Keep your honesty and integrity and if they do not appreciate it, you did not need them for a client.

Many appraisers think AMCs are the life blood of this profession. Yet, I do little to no AMC work. Every once in a while I will accept an order from one, but I always seem to regret it. There are many local banks and credit unions that use portals (Mercury, Appraisalport, etc) instead of AMCs.

If you get into this business, don't expect to be successful without getting established first. My son went three months without an order when he first got licensed. Then he found a client that finally got him rolling. He offered to work some outlying counties to get his foot in the door. But, he still needs to find others so all his eggs are not in one basket.

 

[LesPaul59]

Hi, I'm Eric, a 52-year-old entrepreneur and long-time small business owner. I am interested in becoming a certified real estate appraiser, and I would appreciate some advice from the forum on the best pathway forward. I'm seeking recommendations on the best schools, how to obtain my 1500 hours of work under another appraiser's mentorship, and what my expected salary might look like. Additionally, I'm curious about the long-term occupational outlook for real estate appraisers. Thanks in advance, Eric in Georgia

My advice would be to not take the advice of any one on an internet forum.

 

[ucbruin]

Does that mean ALL ADVICE....

 

[J Grant]

My advice would be to not take the advice of any one on an internet forum.

cute, but who else are they supposed to ask being that most people do not know appraisers?
They got a cross-section of replies which they can consider as they do additional research-

 

[RCA]

How many appraisers own large $1M+ homes? How many even own small homes? How many rent? How many are divorced? Oh, yeah.

I would argue that even many of the appraisers who are well-to-do have wives who have good jobs - or assets from inheritance. - Or possibly are busy bees with CCIMs involved in real estate sales and investment (and who knows what else). There are still some exceptions. But the **** hits the fan when retirement comes along, and they become reliant on social security checks - which depend on many years of consistently high income.

 

[RCA]

What you can be absolutely sure of is that this is the perfect occupation for robots: Capable of being fully objective, understand statistics, and can do everything in a very consistent detailed manner. Future human appraisers will just be monitoring appraiser robots from outside the property, transporting them from one house to the next. -- Of course that is a ways off. But probably not as far off as one might think, especially given the current dramatic progress in AI and Robot technology.

A young college graduate would be well advised to do whatever it takes to get a job working with AI and/or robotics. To work with the latest AI day-in and day-out. To go to sleep with it, to wake with it. To learn, learn, learn.