Pickleball, Promises, and the Quiet Takeover of Appraisal
“Fair warning, we take our pickleball as seriously as we take our appraisal tech.”
That showed up in my inbox this week as part of a promotion for the Appraiser’s Conference and Trade Show 2026. Smiling emojis, rally invites, reminders to book meetings with onboarding teams and partnership managers, all wrapped in a message about staying ahead of what’s next. I have been in a slowdown for four years now, so when something like that comes across my screen, it lands differently. A lot of appraisers are not rallying right now. They are waiting on work, stretching assignments, and trying to hold things together while volume remains inconsistent.
So, when that message hits, it doesn’t feel like leadership. It feels like a disconnect from the people actually doing the work. A show of hands, how many appraisers can afford to attend this gathering of industry arrogance?
And while that disconnect plays out in conference halls and vendor booths, something far more consequential is moving forward in the background.
H.R. 1625, also known as S.1635, is being presented as modernization. That label deserves a closer look, because what is being proposed has very little to do with supporting the appraiser and a great deal to do with restructuring control.
At its core, the bill creates a nationwide appraisal database that reaches back to 2017 and pulls forward everything appraisers have produced since then. Not summaries or anonymized trends, but full appraisal level detail, including the appraiser’s name, license ID, comparable selection, adjustments, reconciliation, and written narrative. It then mandates public, searchable, and downloadable access to that information, opening the door for widespread scraping, modeling, and third-party use.
An appraisal has never been a public document. It is a confidential communication between the appraiser and the client, developed for a specific assignment. That boundary has always been fundamental to the credibility of the process. This bill removes it without hesitation.
Every report completed since 2017 is drawn into a nationwide system, and every report going forward risks becoming part of the same structure. What once existed within the scope of a single assignment is converted into a permanent dataset, accessible in ways that were never contemplated when the work was performed. Calling that oversight does not make it oversight. It is the systematic capture of professional work product.
And what is being captured is not just data points. It is the substance of the work itself. It is the judgment behind adjustments, the reasoning within the narrative, and the experience that supports the final conclusion. That is the part of the process that cannot be automated without first being collected, studied, and replicated.
That is what this bill makes possible.
Federal copyright protections apply the moment original work is created. The Fifth Amendment does not allow private property to be taken without just compensation. USPAP clearly defines the appraisal report as a confidential communication. S.1635 presses directly against each of these principles while presenting the outcome as a public benefit.
Transparency is the word being used. Extraction is the result that follows.
Because once that level of detail is centralized and accessible, it does not sit idle. It feeds systems. It refines models. It supports decisions that increasingly move further away from the individual appraiser who produced the work in the first place.
The appraiser is not being brought into that system. The appraiser is being converted into an input.
The structure of the bill makes that shift even more concerning. It repeatedly references an “agency” that will oversee this modernization effort, yet it never clearly identifies who or what that agency is. That lack of definition is not a drafting oversight. It is an open door.
The industry has seen what happens when that kind of space is left unclaimed. It gets filled by the groups best positioned to control flow and monetize access. That is how AMCs expanded their role in the first place, stepping into an undefined area, taking control of the ordering pipeline, and building a system around managing work they do not perform.
The bottom line is, an AMC business creates no value. (or added value)
But they control who gets the assignment and how much is paid for it. They make you bid on that work and keep ordering appraisals until someone gets the value they want. Inside of their pea sized brain that makes the appraisal a commodity. Sorry, I’m not selling pork bellies I’m producing top of the line reports. Stop bidding on work!
Now extend that structure into a system with access to nationwide appraisal data and the authority to regulate how that data is used. That is not a small adjustment to the existing framework. It is a consolidation of influence over both the process and the information behind it.
S.1635 does not need to remove the appraiser overnight to change the profession. It only needs to centralize the data, standardize the inputs, and allow systems to develop around that foundation. As those systems mature, reliance on individual appraiser’s declines, and the role itself becomes easier to redefine in ways that no longer require the same level of independence or judgment.
That is not speculation. It is a pattern.
This is why that initial (junk) email matters more than it should. It’s not about pickleball. It is about perspective. On one side, there are conferences, product demonstrations, and conversations about what comes next. On the other, there are appraisers navigating a prolonged slowdown while the structure around them continues to shift in ways they did not design and are not being asked to approve.
“Hi this is Frank from the AMC, come watch me drink Mint juleps and light Cuban cigars from $100 bills that came from the pockets of appraisers. Listen to me virtue signal about pickleball, the latest fad I know nothing about, but I look hip strutting around with the racket of which I overpaid” I’ve got your pickleball right here Frank!
This is not about resisting change. Appraisers have always adapted to new requirements, new technologies, and new expectations. The issue is not change itself, but who that change is being built for. AMC workers should have to bid each week to see if they work. “Sorry kids I didn’t bid low enough this week, looks like homelessness is coming soon.”
There is a clear difference between modernization that supports the appraiser and modernization that absorbs the appraiser.
S.1635 moves firmly in the latter direction. It removes the boundary around confidential work, opens the door to uncompensated use of appraisal data, and establishes a governing structure without clearly defining who holds authority. It does all of this while relying on the very professionals it sidelines to supply the information that makes the system function.
I invite appraisers, collateral risk professionals and lenders to take a look at a system built by appraisers for everyone. At HARBOR we solve the problems, give clear instruction on how that happens and places appraisers in charge of the valuation industry. “Someone holler at pickleball Frank and tell him the party is moving to HARBOR.”
