I got $.02, I got $.02!!!!
If the fee shop is truly above board and intends to invest some time into their trainees, the "training fee" will be a real loser for them. The only reason they are charging it is to ensure the trainee won't give up too soon. On the other hand, if this is a sweat shop then the fee will be sufficient only for a training program that is limited to 1 or 2 inspections with the appraiser, and a 'we'll-answer-questions-as-they-come-up' attitude. In other words, you'll be on your own. I would avoid that one if that's how it's going to be. I've seen appraisers with 3 and 4 years of experience in that kind of environment turn out to be no more knowledgable than a 1-year newbie from a good shop, and a whole lot less ethical.
The sliding fee schedule is clearly geared toward production. Just the fact that the schedule rewards a person more for producing in excess of 20 assignments a week is going to be a red flag to most real appraisers. However, it is possible that the counting of those assignments includes only those assignments that don't require heavy re-work by the principal. In other words, the assignment might not count unless you did a good job. If I had to rate the probabilities on this I'd have to say it's 70/30 in favor of quantity and turn times being more important than quality.
Slacker's response notwithstanding, when an appraiser is focusing on volume over quality, corners are going to get cut. It's as simple as that. So you can either listen to someone who was telling us in February of this year that he was doing 2 appraisals a week in addition to his regular day job (this makes him a beginner, even if he's been doing it this way for 5 years) and who probably shouldn't even be working without supervision himself, or you can listen to the rest of us; the choice is obviously going to be yours.
As a couple of the other responses on this thread have suggested, I would look closely at the ratio of junior appraisers (trainees and licensed appraisers with less than 3 years experience) to certified appraisers in the shop. In a functioning fee shop, that ratio shouldn't be more than about a 60/40 ratio between junior appraisers and certified appraisers, with a large percentage of the junior appraisers having at least 1 year of full time experience. So in a 25-appraiser shop, there shouldn't be more than 5 or 6 trainees at the most. If there are more than that then you have a bona fide sweat shop. The chances that everyone is doing the right thing are exceedingly small.
Incidentally, junior appraisers should not be working on all types of SFR appraisals by themselves. A Licensed appraiser, who would be farther along than a Trainee, is considered by the feds as having insufficient education and experience to work on complex appraisal assignments. The definition of a complex assignment includes "the property to be appraised, the form of ownership or market conditions are atypical". If you think about it, that definition includes a lot of homes, transaction amounts notwithstanding. What this means to your situation is that the types of assignments given to a trainee should consist of the most simple types of SFR appraisals; trainees and licensees shouldn't even be working on complex SFR assignments without significant personal supervision. Even as a trainee appraiser, the Competency Rule in USPAP applies, so look before you leap on these assignments. When it comes to competency, no appraiser, from trainee to guru, has any business "just going for it." It might be cool for the American business ethic (all you have to do is work hard and deliver) to accept assignments that are over your head and then work your way through them but it is specifically prohibited when it comes to our profession.
Getting started in this business is hard. It's always been hard and it looks like it's only going to get harder as time goes on. Bite the bullet now and try your absolute best to do the right thing always and you will eventually prevail. But if you give into the impulse to succumb to the "this is just another business" mindset, you will eventually face the prospect of being known as a hack rather than a professional.
George Hatch
