Category: Appraisal Organizations

Appraisal news for real estate appraisers and real estate professionals regarding Appraisal Organizations. News relating to the Appraisal Industry.

Cert 25 Dilemma: TAF Abdicates Its Role as Ethics Arbiter 42

Cert 25 Dilemma: TAF Abdicates Its Role as Ethics Arbiter

We finally have a direct written response from The Appraisal Foundation regarding the Cert 25 confidentiality crisis and it is a masterclass in bureaucratic buck passing. A peer recently contacted TAF to ask how appraisers can remain compliant with the USPAP Ethics Rule while signing a form that opens the floodgates for data distribution. TAF basically hid under their desks. They claimed they cannot give legal advice and told us that questions about Cert 25 are best suited for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac since they built the form. Then they dropped this standard canned line to try and brush...

ACI / Appraisal / Appraisal News / Appraisal Organizations / Appraisal Software / Appraisers News

Certification 25 and the Quiet Breach of Appraiser Confidentiality 67

Certification 25 and the Quiet Breach of Appraiser Confidentiality

Certification 25 made me realize that my refusal to participate in UAD 3.6 was justified long before I even knew what was buried in its certifications. A peer sent me Phil Crawford’s new podcast episode this morning, and I opened it without thinking much of it because I had assumed his retirement from the show meant he was done weighing in on industry developments. I have been following the news and the chatter around 3.6, but I haven’t been preparing for it. I have not taken any UAD 3.6 classes, have not attended any seminars, have not tested the form,...

Appraisal / Appraisal News / Appraisal Organizations / Appraisers News / The Appraisal Foundation / Trending

Property Valuation and the Future of Data Collection 32

Property Valuation and the Future of Data Collection

Property valuation is shifting fast, and the push to regulate who collects the data inside people’s homes will determine whether the process stays accurate, safe and trustworthy.  Property data collection has quietly become one of the most consequential shifts in modern real estate, reshaping how lenders, AMCs and national platforms gather the information that ultimately determines a homeowner’s equity, a buyer’s loan terms and the integrity of the appraisal process itself. Yet most consumers have no idea who is actually walking through their home, measuring rooms, photographing conditions or documenting features. In many states, the answer is startling: no license,...

Appraisal / Appraisal News / Appraisal Organizations / Appraisers News / Trending / Virginia Real Estate Appraiser Board

When Protected Becomes Pressure: Object by July 27 7

When ‘Protected’ Becomes Pressure: You Have Until July 27 to Object

The new fair‑housing course weaponizes protected characteristics to pressure appraisers into outcome‑driven valuation, directly contradicting USPAP’s prohibition on advocacy. The Fair Housing Course Is Training You to Break USPAP. You Have Until July 27 to Say So. The Appraiser Qualifications Board’s Second Exposure Draft keeps a required course that pressures new appraisers to advocate an outcome based on protected characteristics. That is not fair housing. It is not lawful. And you can still stop it — but the comment window closes July 27. Let me say it plainly. We are being pushed — through licensing law and federal fair-housing regulation...

Appraisal / Appraisal News / Appraisal Organizations / Appraisers News / AQB / The Appraisal Foundation

Jan Bellas 29

Honoring Jan Bellas, Our Greatest Advocate

Jan Bellas passed away on July 7, 2026, and those of us in the appraisal profession who knew her are grieving someone who was far more than a colleague. Jan wasn’t an appraiser, yet she carried the weight of our struggles as if they were her own. She understood the pressures, the unfair treatment, the isolation, the frustration, and the constant fight to be heard, and she absorbed all of it. She had a way of making appraisers feel lighter the moment they called her. You could pick up the phone in the middle of a crisis, whether it was...

AGA / Appraisal / Appraisal News / Appraisal Organizations / Appraisers News / The American Guild of Appraisers

The Board Has Spoken, and AMCs Should Pay Attention 16

The Board Has Spoken, and AMCs Should Pay Attention

The Board handled this case with the same patience appraisers have when an AMC sends “preferred comps” from another planet.  Virginia’s Real Estate Appraiser Board delivered a message at its June meeting that was impossible to miss. An attorney appeared on behalf of Financial Asset Services and Brandon Sison, asking the Board to reconsider the discipline handed down in March. The request arrived without the AMC or Sison themselves, which already set an interesting tone. When you ask a regulatory board to undo a suspension, showing up in person is usually a good start. The March decision was clear. The...

AMC / Appraisal / Appraisal Management Companies / Appraisal News / Appraisal Organizations / Appraisers News

Flags Over Facts: The Road to Obsolescence 62

Flags Over Facts: The Road to Obsolescence

The latest round of modernization comes wrapped in friendly language, but the flags are hard to miss if you’ve been paying attention.  For years, appraisers have been warning that the mortgage industry was slowly engineering us out of the process. We were told we were paranoid. Resistant to change. Stuck in the past. Then the newest Mortgage Credit Executive Order arrived, and the appraisal section opened with a single line that confirmed everything we’ve been saying: expand AVMs, desktops, hybrids, and AI. That’s the priority. Everything else in that section is just polite filler wrapped around a strategy to shrink...

Appraisal / Appraisal News / Appraisal Organizations / Appraisal Software / Appraisal Subcommittee / Appraisers News

A Baseless Bias Claim Turns Into a State Appraisal Crusade 30

A Baseless Bias Claim Turns Into a State Appraisal Crusade

This is the story of how a false bias allegation became the basis for an aggressive, unjustified prosecution by the state appraisal board.  My name is Steve Orlowski, and I am a retired Illinois Certified Residential Real Estate Appraiser. In November 2020, I conducted a property appraisal. The owner deemed my value low by more than $100,000. He only complained to the State of Illinois Department of Real Estate and filed a racism complaint with HUD; he didn’t submit a reconsideration of value. Following an informal hearing, the State of Illinois Appraisal Board required me to acknowledge my wrongdoing, complete...

Appraisal / Appraisal News / Appraisal Organizations / Appraisers News / IDFPR / Illinois Department of Financial & Professional Regulation

Suspended: The AMC That Turned Review Into a Value Demand 36

Suspended: The AMC That Turned “Review” Into a Value Demand

Financial Asset Services and its chief appraiser did not just cross the line of appraiser independence, they marched past it so boldly that the Virginia Board suspended them both. In a rare twist involving a reverse mortgage, the push for a lower value became so aggressive that the Board ultimately issued a second suspended license to drive the point home.  The Virginia Coalition of Appraiser Professionals recently highlighted a case that should make every appraiser pause. Financial Asset Services (FAS) was hired to manage a reverse mortgage appraisal, a product where the pressure often runs in the opposite direction. Instead...

AMC / Appraisal / Appraisal Management Companies / Appraisal News / Appraisal Organizations / Appraisers News

The AMC Industry Won’t Be Toppled by Code 17

The AMC Industry Won’t Be Toppled by Code

Call me when AI stops summarizing and starts suing, because until it drags the AMC industry into court, raids their coffers, and rewires the entire system they broke, it’s just another overhyped spectator in the plunder parade.  We’ve entered an era where more people are giving AI broader directives, asking bigger questions, and expecting deeper responses, only to receive yet another AI-generated summary. But what, exactly, is AI doing in response? That’s the real limitation of the tech. Right now, millions are spinning their wheels in digital circles, posing complex problems to a machine built to mimic intelligence. And when...

AMC / Appraisal / Appraisal Management Companies / Appraisal News / Appraisers News / The Appraisal Foundation