Obstacles To A California Appraiser's License?

[Dennis Nowicki]

Hello.

It's terrific to have this forum available for those in the profession as well as those who like myself are enthusiatically pursuing it. Thanks to all.

I'm enrolled in the Allied Appraiser's Course, but intend on completing my Real Estate Broker's license first, in order to reduce the number of trainee hours from 2,000 to 1,000 to get certification. Once the courses and subsequent state tests have been passed, sometime toward the end of first quarter 2005, my next concern wil be finding a mentor to help me obtain the on-the-job experience. I read online that it can be quite difficult finding a certified Appraiser willing to train. Is this true, and is there something I can do to improve my chances here in Orange County, California?

Thank you in advance for any response.

Dennis Nowicki

 

[CANative]

Welcome to the forum.

Yes, it is true that it's hard to find a supervisory appraiser to teach you the profession.

Regarding your ambitions to get a brokers license in order to get the 1,000 hours toward certification: The 2,000 hours is the requirement for the Licensed level (AL) not the Certified level (AR) Keep in mind that if you want to upgrade to the AR level at some point your basic appraisal courses must be "live courses" rather than correspondence courses like Allied offers.

 

[Bill Rose]

The odds are stacked against you. 9 out of 10 give up or do it under the table. The program is intentionally designed to fail.

 

[CANative]

The program is intentionally designed to fail.

That's not true.

 

[George Hatch]

You signed up for Allied's 90-hour correspondence course without having a plan for getting a job? That was a fairly sizable wager. What led you to make it?

I think it's illuminating that you would refer the the education and experience requirements of professional licensing as an obstacle to overcome rather than as an opportunity to learn and gain competency. If you want to improve your chances in finding a training opportunity with an appraiser, you might want to reconsider this mindset. I can pretty much guarantee that if you don't the only opportunities you're even going to have a shot at are with people who have a similar attitude towards our requirements. At which point you will discover that there are worse things than merely having difficulties finding a job.

And Bill was being far too optimistic about the chances (10%) of the average Trainee. The last time I checked, there were far more AT licenses out there than any other license category. Couple that with a declining demand for services and it's really going to be more like 95-97% of aspiring Trainees are going to either give up or take their chances by doing it illegitimately and hoping they don't get caught. If Allied had told you that, would it have affected your decision to sign up for licensing courses?

If you want to increase your chances, your next best bet (after reorienting your attitude) is to actually work on your qualifications and your personal network. Quality is more important than quantity - for both aspects - and you'll need both of them to succeed.

 

[Dennis Nowicki]

Thanks for the rather rude awakening.

First of all, I'm sorry if I seemed to refer to the courseware and testing as 'obstacles'. I've enjoyed learning much about this profession through the bookwork at least, and of course carry an enthusiasm for my ultimate success. The only obstacle I felt I was facing was finding a mentor, which you have verified as quite improbable. It seems my best bet is to focus on pursuing any and all Appraisers within a 100 mile radius and bribe or beg to get some credible hours under my belt.

As far as going in without a 'plan', that is much of how I've succeeded in other areas up to now...Air Force, computer maintenance, teaching English in Japan, webmastering...I've always managed to find another vine while swinging towards a goal.

It just seems too bad that from what I'm hearing in this forum of seasoned professionals is that I might as well go elsewhere and drop my professional plans. Sad. Well, the optimistic point I see is I very well may be one of the three to ten out of a hundred who do make it.

 

[George Hatch]

I apologize if my response came across as being rude. That was not my intention.

Well, the optimistic point I see is I very well may be one of the three to ten out of a hundred who do make it.

There will (probably) always be the 3%. Somebody is going to make it and there's no reason why that somebody can't be you. It really all comes down to how badly you need to do this and what you're willing to do in order to get there.

If you look around under the "newbies" subforum, you'll see a lot of threads in this same vein. We always tend to have a few Trainees on the forum who have been recently successful in getting their first job, and if you root around a little you'll find the threads where they explain how they did it. I think you'll find that the primary common attributes they all share are their personal networking skills and their willingness to go the extra mile in order to make it happen. Not necessarily in that order.

 

[Dennis Nowicki]

George,

Thanks for steering me into the Newbie forum...most of my concerns and curiosities are found there and have been answered.

I also appreciate your straightforward feedback. Hope to meet you someday down south and buy you a beer...(and I promise not to bug you about training!)



Dennis