Newz: Expanded Intended Users?
The Appraiser Exodus and How to Fix It.
May 8, 2026
What’s in This Newsletter (In Order, Scroll Down)
- LIA AD: Expanding Intended Users? Not So Fast
- Under Pressure: What’s Driving the Appraiser Exodus and How to Fix It, By David Massey
- Historic Tudor Estate With English Gardens and Prairie Views Is Listed for $4.7 Million Near Chicago
- What is a Pre-listing appraisal? Written for Home Owners But Has Good Tips for Appraisers, By Tom Horn
- MY AD: What Happened When Government Decided That Appraisers Needed Protection, By Cindy Chance, PhD
- How to See the Potential in Homes That Don’t Look Perfect. Written for Home Owners But Has Good Tips for appraisers
- More Than 60% of America Is Covered by Drought and Millions of Homes Are at Risk
- UAD 3.6 Bootcamp, LIVE in Chicago, IL and on Zoom, Wednesday – Friday, May 13th-15th
- MBA STATS: Mortgage applications decreased 4.4 percent from one week earlier
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Under Pressure: What’s Driving the Appraiser Exodus and How to Fix It,
By David Massey
Ask any veteran appraiser or physician what has changed most over the past twenty years, and the answer is usually the same: paperwork.
Professions once centered on skill, judgment, and service are now dominated by portals, compliance layers, and third-party control. Burnout rises, independence falls, and a quiet exodus follows.
The American Medical Association reports that physicians now spend nearly two hours on documentation for every hour of patient care.
The appraisal profession is now well into that cycle.
According to the Appraisal Institute’s 2023 Fact Sheet, the number of practicing appraisers in the United States has declined by roughly 8,000 in recent years. The Conference of State Bank Supervisors shows a longer-term drop from about 120,000 appraisers in 2008 to fewer than 96,000 by 2017, a 21 percent decline in less than a decade. IBISWorld reports another six percent employment drop between 2018 and 2023. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects only modest growth through 2034, far short of what is needed to replace retirees.
The pipeline is shrinking while demand remains steady.
The National Association of Realtors ® 2023 Appraisal Survey found that more than half of appraisers are now asked monthly, or more often, to complete assignments outside their normal geographic or property-type expertise. More telling, 54 percent cited Appraisal Management Companies as the single greatest challenge to their business. That statistic alone explains much of what has gone wrong.
When I started in this profession, appraisal centered on analysis, interpretation, and professional opinion. I studied neighborhoods, walked properties, and applied experience to market behavior. Today, much of the job revolves around compliance portals, redundant uploads, and layers of review by people who have never inspected a property.
AMCs were created after the 2008 crisis to protect appraiser independence. The idea made sense. The execution has failed. Today, borrowers commonly pay $600 to $700 for an appraisal, while the appraiser often receives about half of that after AMC fees. Turn times lengthen. Panel depth shrinks. Geographic competency erodes. And experienced appraisers quietly step away.
What was meant to reduce pressure has become a system of control. Communication between lenders and appraisers is filtered. Pricing is dictated by algorithms. Scope interpretations are issued by third parties removed from the field. Judgment is slowly replaced by checklist compliance.
Healthcare has already traveled this road.
A 2025 Annals of Internal Medicine study showed nearly five percent of U.S. physicians left clinical practice in a single year, driven largely by burnout and administrative burden. The American Medical Association reports that physicians now spend nearly two hours on documentation for every hour of patient care.
Appraisers now operate inside the same imbalance. More time formatting reports than analyzing markets. More time satisfying review protocols than developing defensible opinions. Judgment yields to process.
This is not a workforce inconvenience. It is a structural market risk.
The fix is not complicated, but it does require courage.
First, appraisal fee transparency must be mandatory. If a borrower pays $650 and the appraiser receives $325, both parties deserve to know. Transparency restores accountability and allows market forces to function.
To read more, Click Here
My comments: Worth reading, especially how to fix it. We all know what is happening to residential lender appraisers.
For doctors, corporate medicine has taken over. For example, primary care physicians are allowed only 15 minute visits with patients. Large insurance companies make it very difficult for patients to get the care they need by denying what the patient needs. Doctors don’t like it, plus the excessive paperwork.
I play pickleball with a retired doctor. He had to sell his medical practice as he was underbid on fees by large health insurance companies.
Posted in: appraisal business, appraisal how to, Appraisal Institute, UAD 3.6
