And of course, scandal was the result.  Manipulation of the trades through the digisphere.  There is always a person behind any program.  Reliance on computers is a mistake.  Stop the Robots.

You need not look any further than the stock market to see where the appraisal profession is heading. The stock market requires a checks and balance system far more than the lending industry. How much of the daily trading volume do super computers do? The number was around 90% five years ago. Initial stock valuation is no different. If you want to know where real estate valuation is heading tomorrow watch the stock market today.

Necessary from whose perspective?  The checks and balances systems are vital, and cannot be substituted by pre programmed computers and algorithms.  If there is no more appraiser mandate in lending, the natural consequence of that in an honest business setting is that lenders would qualify the borrowers payment ability for the amount lended, instead of focusing on the ever changing collateralized real property value.  In which case, the open market for home buyer appraisal services would explode and get really really busy.  You’d have to be absolutely out of your mind to buy a home without having a checks and balances system in place to make sure you were not getting ripped off, over paying, or under selling.  If automation gets that far legitimately, it will seek to replace both realty and appraisal, and the result will be an explosion in demand for independent auditors, not associated with central lenders.  Betcha a hamburger that credit unions won’t go that route, because unlike many centralized bankers, credit unions still actually shoulder the risk and loan their own money.

Once upon a time we stood in line for hours to see Jaws and Star Wars. Cinema was IT…the only IT in fact. IT later gave way to video tape rentals (Block Buster) which gave way to DVD rentals, which gave way to Netflix & Redbox. Netflix and Redbox are already beginning to lose market share as they take their turn in line of obscurity.

The appraisal profession continues to evolve in much the same way. Film based photos and real signatures gave way to digital photos and digital signatures. Artificial intelligence has the capacity to turn the appraisal profession on it’s ear far faster than any of you realize. Within a matter of years home inspections (data input) will be the only necessary from a human being aside from software engineers. I see this taking place in less than 10 years as the appraiser shortage reaches critical mass.

Appraisers are Block Buster. Instead of Red Box, appraisers need to become Netflix.