That's true. When I come across a bad appraisal by a designated appraiser, it sure looks good on the surface. They are much better educated and can put in all the wording in their reports to make black seem white if you don't have abosulte access to the necessary data and rely only on the data in their reports and their designation.
Of course, I'm speaking of the bad reports I come across, and they come in equal numbers from designated and non-designated appraisers by proportion (of course more come from non-designated because there are more of them). There are good one's, too, just as there are good non-designated appraisers. Proportionally, they are the same.
A good appraiser is a good appraiser. I know appraisers who are so increadibly "educated" and designated but have no clue, whatsoever. And I've seen newbies put out abosultely well substantiated analysis as well as any otehr appraiser. The designation means yo uhad more time to meet a private organizations requirements. That's about all. Taking classes and passing a test doesn't mean you learned a thing: it just means you took some classes and passed a test.
If an MAI is a great appraiser, it is NOT because he or she is an MAI, but because he or she applies themselve to doing a job right.
I WON'T become designated because I find too many of the people involved to be personally snobbish and because they are easily duped, such as third parties writing their demonstration appraisals for the AI, or the fact that they didn't even notice that a few demonstration reports they received in a single mont were exactly the same report with the addresses changed. Yeah, these appraisers recevied their designations, and I DON'T BLAME THEM FOR CHEATING because they are EXCELLENT appraisers, and what they had to do to join a private club was perhaps against the charter of that club, but is NOT how they operate when perforing their service. They were simply too busy doing honest work to waste time on a demo that obviously doen't get well read. Similarly, I don't care if a person has personal morals I don't agree with as LONG AS THEY PERFORM THEIR APPRAISAL PRACTICE DILIGENTLY, ETHICALLY, AND PROPERLY.
There's even an MAI here in my town that thinks being an MAI is the same as being an attorney, just as difficult to achieve, and just as much has to be learned. Obviously this idiot has never even had one semester of law school: you learn more in the first two weeks than is possible to learn about a single topic like appraisal.
Designations? Do not mean much to me. Maybe they would if EVERY report performed by a designated person had to be reviewed by the same committee that reviews their demonstration reports. Anyone CAN write a clean report if properly motivated, but that doesn't mean they do. Writing one good report for your demo is not the same as saying your prepare EVERY aprpaisal to the same standards.
Do industry associations do enough to fix the problems? No, because they simply can't. All the problems related to our profession are related to 2 primary problems: (1) our lack of cohesiveness to ensure our own professions against outside competition such as AVM's and low paying AMC's, and (2) corrupt and inept appraisers. In the case of the first element, such organizations have no power. In the case of the second, each person is responsible for their own work, and personal experience in more than 20 years has shown me these organizations will accept anyone who meets their criteria on face, but not in overall practice. Furthermore, please note that one big organization created an organizaion-"ready" standard of data in partnership with an AVM that mines our data: they certainly aren't interested in helping us, just feeling good about themselves and acting like big-wigs.
Plus, I hate the AI sending me multi-megabyte attchements in their unsolicited emails for me to advertise with them (finally they stopped).
JD Biggers
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