Both commercial fee appraisers and chief appraisers (and their teams that support them) work incredibly hard. Yet somewhere along the way, both sides can lose sight of what the other actually does.
Chief appraisers manage appraisal panels, oversee compliance programs, respond to FDIC and OCC examinations, train lenders, support credit administration, maintain policies, attend committee meetings and prepare reports for management and regulators.
The audit burden has changed as well. Today’s environment feels like “death by a thousand cuts.” Instead of one major examination every few years, banks now face a steady stream of requests from regulators, auditors, risk management teams and internal stakeholders.
Fee appraisers juggle multiple assignments, complex property types, market research, report writing, client expectations and the constant pressure to produce credible work while running a business. Internal quality control remains an ongoing struggle.
At the same time, most fee appraisers only see chief appraisers through engagement letters, revision requests and the occasional difficult phone call. What they often don’t see is everything happening on the other side of the desk. Ordering and reviewing appraisals is only a small part of the job.
The understanding, however, needs to go both ways. Many chief appraisers have not written a commercial appraisal in years and may have forgotten the effort required to produce a quality report under real-world deadlines and business pressures.
At FIVA, one of our goals is reducing the commercial appraisal revision rate from 50% to 10%. AI review products like Realwired’s Parachute can help improve first-pass quality, but the bigger opportunity is perspective.
When fee appraisers understand the pressures chief appraisers face and chief appraisers remember the realities of appraisal production, collaboration improves.
Less friction. Better communication. Fewer revisions.
Stronger outcomes for the profession.
Sometimes the fastest way to improve the appraisal process is simply to better understand the person sitting on the other side of the desk.