Nationwide, appraisers are seeing their ranks shrink through attrition, increased regulation at the federal level and stagnant fees. One local group is trying to address these issues by bringing them to the attention of Congress.

Steve Sousa, executive director of the Massachusetts Board of Real Estate Appraisers (MBREA) and Rick Lipof, owner of Lipof Real Estate Services in Newton, created a presentation called “The Approaching Appraiser Shortage” and met with Rep. Joe Kennedy III and Rep. Michael E. Capuano last year to alert them to the problems appraisers face, and to ask them for help.

Sousa said the biggest challenge to the profession is for trainees to get the 2,500 hours of experience they need to become certified. While lenders don’t object to trainees doing the research required to come up with a value for a property, Lipof said that’s not enough work to get the number of hours they need in the two-year time limit.

To get enough hours, Lipof said trainees need to do on-site appraisals as well, but most lenders have stopped accepting an appraisal where the trainee did the site visit, even though a certified appraiser is required to sign off on the entire and assume all liability.

“Economically, that just doesn’t work,” Sousa said. “What’s even more frustrating is there are many local lenders who have a good relationship with appraisers and would be willing to allow trainees, except they wouldn’t be able to sell the loan to one of the big aggregators like Chase, who require the site visit to be done by a certified appraiser.”

Seeking Congressional Support

Sousa and Lipof met with Kennedy first in his Newton district office. Lipof said the congressman listened to them, was sympathetic, and was surprised to learn that the number of appraisers and trainees in Mass. has declined more than 44 percent since 2007. Trainees – entry-level appraisers – alone are down 87 percent since 2007.

“And most of those trainees probably aren’t even working,” Lipof said. “They may have gotten their license before things got bad and have moved on.”

It’s a nationwide problem. There were 78,500 real estate appraisers in the U.S. in 2015, according to the Appraisal Institute. That’s down 20 percent since 2007, and the trend is expected to continue.

In addition to that, statistics show that appraisers are pale, male and getting kind of stale. The appraisal institute data says 74 percent of real estate appraisers are white, 90 percent are male and 51 percent are between the ages of 51 and 65.

“He immediately got it,” Lipof said. “He had a lot of good questions. We educated him about what is happening and how it happened. He’s smart and knows how government works. He told us the best way to be effective is to talk to someone in the right committee.”

Like the Financial Services Committee, where Capuano is the ranking member from Massachusetts.

“We know Congress can’t pass a law forcing lenders to accept trainees,” Sousa said. “Our hope is Capuano could use his influence to get lenders to reconsider their policies.”

In a statement, Capuano said he asked Lipof and Sousa to stay in touch and send him more information.

“We are in the process of reviewing that information and determining next steps,” Capuano said.

Lipof said he has taken on anywhere from 70 to 100 trainees in the 25 years he’s been in business. Currently, he has none, because the economics no longer work. Sousa said many of his organization’s members have stopped taking on trainees for the same reason.

Other Challenges

The pair brought other challenges appraisers face to the congressmen’s attention as well, including new FHA regulations they feel forces them to do more work and accept more liability.

“On top of that, the government has increased the number of class credit hours to become certified and made a college degree mandatory, Lipof said. “In 15 years, there will be few, if any, appraisers left – and nobody’s talking about this.”

With a supply of appraisers dwindling and the red-hot real estate market creating demand for their work, one would expect them to raise their prices, especially since they’ve been flat for so long, but lenders and appraisal management companies kept the fees locked for years before recently giving appraisers modest increases when the TRID changes went into effect.

“Those increases don’t reflect the additional due diligence and work involved since 2009 where an appraiser can now only do half the number of jobs they used to, due to the increased workload,” Lipof said. “I am not able to bring in new appraisers because of this.”