Originally posted by Alex Peterson@Oct 30 2003, 10:01 AM
Fear seems to be the driving factor in this discouraging behavior. This is why I think as a group, appraisers eat their young! Nobody wants to be told things are going to be easy if they are not, but telling people to give it up is equally unreasonable, and self-serving for those who fear lowly trainees.
To all appraiser wannabe's:
Did it ever occur to you that perhaps the education system for appraisers is where the true flaws are?
Would you have entered the field if you had been required from the start to take a full-time, non-paying trade school type of education (
minimum two years) that, when completed, did not require finding a mentor to start your own appraisal business?
MOST who enter this field do so because they believe that they can make big money with minimal effort or costs in the form of education. MOST would not do so if the above mentioned education were required to enter the field.
Why do you think your classrooms were so full? Did you bother to ask your instructors or the school what the placement rates are for trainee graduates? If you did, what were you told? I'll wager that it wasn't an answer with numerical figures, but a instead a pep talk about perseverence and how much effort you put into it. That answer will be a half truth. Nobody keeps track of the hard numbers of those who actually succeed in finding mentors or eventually reach a license level that will allow them to be independant. Seasoned appraisers on this forum estimate that less than 10% will make it. Given the current slowdown in mortgage work, I think most would agree that 10% figure would be quite high. Not one single instructor or school has stepped forward to dispute or try to disprove those estimates yet, so I'm certain that they're accurate, if not generous.
Be honest with yourself.....is it the fault of the veteran appraisers if you found out
after the fact that you decieved yourself or you dove into the field without researching it first?
Only when the trainees actually start working in the field do they start to figure out that the piddly 90+/- hours of initial education was merely the tip of the iceberg of what they need to learn to succeed in this business. Any misplaced hopes that the money would start pouring in is quickly obliterated. I have yet to see even one new trainee post on this forum who isn't clawing their way up the steep learning curve while trying to figure out how to make enough to cover their bills, unless of course they had a sizable financial cushion before they ever started or they're working for unethical supervisors that are profiting from volume and pay no heed to USPAP.
It's a wake up call to any who have preconcieved notions or unrealistic expectations about what they were getting into (which is the majority).
These wannabe's are the people that established appraisers have to choose from if they have enough time and work to educate and train them. These are the people that we must choose from who we must take full responsibility for, to the point of risking our own hard-earned licenses and/or livlihood if they are negligent or decieve us.
A lot of time and effort with no returns whatsoever is spent on the first six months or so of training, and it's all a waste if the trainee was fooling themselves about what they were getting into, or take short cuts by breeching ethics and guidelines to reach their financial goals sooner.
The responsibility has been laid at the experienced appraisers feet to figure out which potential trainees would have gone through that two-year minimum, non-paying trade school had it been offered, because that is the minimum level of dedication and commitment it takes to make a good, ethical appraiser. You know who your are, we don't.
I would advise every appraiser wannabe to take a very hard look at themselves and be honest about whether or not they could have or would have been willing to make such sacrifices if they had been required to from the beginning.
If not, then you probably should throw in the towell right now, because you're going to have to do it later if a good appraiser hires you. It won't take them too long to figure out what you're really made of.
If you would have, then you're going to have to find a way to prove it to every potential mentor you approach. Remember, at least 90% of the wannabe's who approach us are predestined failures, so you're going to have to overcome and outshine their shortcomings too.
