Now my article. But great information. https://appraisalbuzz.com/a-picture-is-worth-a-thousand-words-until-its-deleted/

Here's something worth clearing up for lenders, agents, and consumers alike: rising appraisal fees are not about appraisers trying to make more money. They're about compensation for decades of experience, the cost of learning and adapting to entirely new technology and reporting systems, and the reality of an extended scope of work that didn't exist last year. An appraiser with 20+ years of experience isn't charging more because the market allows it — they're charging for a level of judgment, speed, and accuracy that newer appraisers, given the current shortage, simply can't replace overnight. Add in new software, new report formats, new devices, and significantly more required documentation per file, and the fee conversation stops being about profit margin and starts being about what the work actually requires now. The full fee logic — why costs are shifting and what's actually driving it — is broken down in Know the Report = Keep the Close. 🎓 Watch the full course — Know the Report = Keep the Close: https://www.skool.com/revalueedge/classroom/53a598e0?md=2962f892641d416fba66bc9d1fb4c298

Appraisers will be filling out numerous report types over the next 6–18 months. While the GSEs — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are already using the new format, FHA, USDA, and VA are still operating on another format entirely. Same job, different paperwork, depending on which file lands on the desk that day. Now let's talk about time. How many hours do you think it takes to complete one full interior/exterior appraisal? Four? Five? Six? Real talk: many take over 8 hours. Some take over 12. One appraisal can realistically take an appraiser a full work day — or longer — start to finish. Does that change how you think about turn times? It should. 🎓 Watch the full course — Know the Report = Keep the Close: https://www.skool.com/revalueedge/classroom/53a598e0?md=2962f892641d416fba66bc9d1fb4c298 Educate. Empower. Execute. — The Edge Is Earned!

Over the last 12 years, appraisal reports have required more and more from appraisers — more comparables, more documentation, more disclosures. Now that expansion just jumped again: reporting requirements have grown by over 406%, almost overnight. Layer that on top of a shrinking workforce: roughly 57% of active appraisers nationally are over the age of 60, and in Illinois, trainee applications fell from 1,231 in 2005 to just 55 by 2015 — a drop of over 95%. Fewer appraisers, doing dramatically more per report, for a transaction volume that hasn't slowed down. The turn times you've grown used to over the past several years are no longer a safe assumption — not because appraisers got slower, but because the job itself just got bigger almost overnight, while the number of people licensed to do it keeps shrinking. 🎓 Watch the full course — Know the Report = Keep the Close: https://www.skool.com/revalueedge/classroom/53a598e0?md=2962f892641d416fba66bc9d1fb4c298 Educate. Empower. Execute. — The Edge Is Earned!

Why it matters: you and your clients are going to see new terminology showing up in new places of the appraisal report — and if you don't recognize it, neither will they, until they ask you. If you've used "GLA" or "gross living area" in a listing conversation, a CMA, or a client explanation — that term is being phased out of the appraisal report entirely. The new standard is Above Grade Finished Area, and it's not just a rename. The new report requires finished area to be broken out level by level — main floor, upper floor, and so on, each reported separately instead of bundled into one total number. Below-grade space gets its own new distinction too: fully below grade versus partially below grade, reported differently depending on which applies. Buyers and sellers remember when their agent explains something clearly before they have to ask — and they remember the reverse, too. 🎓 Watch the full course — Know the Report = Keep the Close: https://www.skool.com/revalueedge/classroom/53a598e0?md=2962f892641d416fba66bc9d1fb4c298 Educate. Empower. Execute. — The Edge Is Earned!