As a state certified appraiser with over 8 years of experience in Northern Virginia I believe that AMC’s are destroying the Appraisal profession. I came across an article stating that the Appraisal industry is facing a drastic decline in its workforce. An FHA published roster of certified appraiser indicates an alarming 28% decline in just 3 years. (www.reversereview.com/magazine/feature-the-appraisal-problem.html‎)

A few days ago I attended a webinar with Richard Hagar SRA entitled “Keeping off Fannie Mae’s new appraiser “Black List”’.  The webinar was great and Richard offered excellent suggestions about how appraisers can stay off  that list. 

Basically, Uniform Mortgage Data Program (UMDP), Uniform Collateral Data Port (UCDP) and Uniform Appraisal Data (UAD) are enabling FNMA to monitor the accuracy and consistency of millions of appraisal reports creating a database on appraisers as well as lenders and AMCs who hire those appraisers; FNMA calls this Program Appraisal Quality Monitoring (AQM).

The results were as follows:

Fannie Mae has identified instances when lenders have delivered appraisals that were completed by appraisers whose license or certification has been revoked or suspended.  AMC’s are looking for fast and cheap; rather than qualified appraisers.  In this case, cheap fees are likely due to competition generated from unlicensed appraisers. FNMA also found instances where appraisers were not even licensed in certain states. According to Richard Hagar, those instances are as high as nearly 15,000 unqualified appraisers  performing appraisal work for AMC’s- of course those AMC’s are still in business!!   

I would definitely like to support the regulation of Appraisal Management companies in the Commonwealth of Virginia.  I would like to see the implementation of regulating “customary and reasonable fees” for all Appraisal Management Companies as recently passed in the state of Louisiana.