The mortgage industry recognized the professional appraiser designations - mortgage lenders understood the stringent requirements and additional education required. Beyond completing additional tested education well above the state minimum requirements for certification, an affiliate needed to meet many other criteria:

Professional appraisal organizations provided defined and tested courses that the state required for certification. Each in-depth class required a passing exam. These tested courses offered appraisers quality education and an extensive working knowledge of the appraisal profession.

After the turn to the 21st century, Florida began allowing certain schools, not affiliated with appraisal organizations, to offer a 75-hour and a 45-hour class for state certification. The state required these classes to cover its minimum requirements. The classes mostly are geared toward passing the test.

This accelerated training program produces many "trainee" appraisers that enter the field having little to no understanding of the basic appraisal principles. Supervisory appraisers are now burdened with the task of training the appraisers. This is a daunting - if not impossible task - to accomplish in two years.

Currently, Florida has over 7,000 certified residential appraisers, and more than half of them have received their licenses within the last six to eight years. Many of these newer appraisers are starting their own businesses after two years and are now training new trainee appraisers. Many have the "show-me-the-money" mentality and few understand the value of joining a professional association.

These newer appraisers are unaware and/or indifferent to the additional courses these associations offer -courses that would serve them well in advancing their knowledge of the profession. The apparent trend for many of the newer appraisers is to use the "less-is-more" method of appraising.

I have concluded, after performing many review appraisals, that few of the newer appraisers measure or inspect a property. They rely on public records and the inspection takes no longer than five minutes. Comparables are quite often selected based on a target value and minimal adjustments are applied in order to appease underwriter guidelines.

Another area of appraising that requires considerable experience and knowledge is the development of a Review Appraisal.  Review Appraisals are becoming more common in the market especially for properties that used to require 2-appraisals. This is a specialized area of appraising that requires considerable experience and an absolute understanding of USPAP Standards 3 for the development of a Review Appraisal.

This area of appraising has become a considerable problem because most people assume that if an appraiser is certified, then they are capable of performing a reliable review appraisal. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth and many appraisers take on Review assignments not realizing that they are not competent to do so.  In fact, this has become such a problem that the Appraisal Institute is presently developing a separate designation specifically for Review Appraising.

Often, new appraisers who exhibit little knowledge of the USPAP Standards 3, will accept Review assignments with the assumption that they are to find something wrong with the appraisal and/or to come in at a lower value.  Many have been performed for no other reason than to discredit the original appraiser. They state differing opinions with absolutely no developed data to support their differing opinions.  These review appraisals often violate many standards, competency and ethics rules. Unfortunately, quite often a review appraisal, regardless of the qualifications of the Reviewer, tend to become the benchmark that trump the original appraisal and too often the original appraisers will have to spend hours and even days defending their analysis due to a poorly supported review appraisal.

Since the advent of desktop underwriting and the accelerated appraisal training programs, it appears that the need for professional and designated appraisers has taken a backseat to expedience and low cost.

When given the option, most dependable clients will still engage the designated and educated appraiser. But, in order to survive in this changing mortgage environment, we as professional appraisers need to support our appraisal organizations as members and urge them to stress the importance of designations, experience and professionalism to the mortgage industry.