One of the few positive trends I have noticed for the appraisal profession was the move by HUD to clarify that they want the appraiser to be the eyes and ears for the lender and not necessarily the decision maker.
Mortgagee letter 2005-ML-48 is a great example of progress because it requires the lender (ok, the UW) to own the ultimate decision.
Try and imagine the possibilities, if a mortgagee letter came out that clearly articulated that the appraiser is to be used as the "eyes and ears" for market conditions, but that the UW would ultimately make the call.
That a report indicating a value range, perhaps a graph or graphs of most similar sales and the subject was the goal for the final product. In other words, no point value dart throw would be required.
Policies recently instituted that require appraisers to address market conditions in extra detail creates a possible golden opportunity to morph this profession into a profession of mini-economists. Sorry, about 70% ultimately might not make the cut & new blood would replace them.
There is a shot at a new professionalism and usefulness in appraising residential property. Maybe it will start within the FHA program, of all places
. Fannie & Freddie would have to redo hard and fast UW rules linked to LTV & CLTV. But, they might be open to the concept. Investor pricing for declining markets might be a practice exercise.
In the future, the somewhat odd ball home that would only have a true comp sale once every few years that was within a few miles might appraise out at $200,000 using traditional methods and a point value determination, but the maximum loan to value would be cut, say, 10% due to the sparse quantity of near model match data.
It didn't come in low, it just came in hard to prove! The UW and the lender get the arrows from consumers and accolades from investors. 
