Tim Andersen, The Appraiser's Advocate Podcast

  The reconsideration of value is a formal process.  In the Fannie Mae Selling Guide are the guidelines that allows a lender or borrower to request a review of an appraisal when relevant new information may affect the value opinion. This isn’t about disagreeing with the appraiser’s judgment.  It’s about presenting factual, material data—such as overlooked property features or newl...

USPAP, SR1-6, and Reconciliation are central to producing a credible opinion of value in any real estate appraisal report. The 2024 Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) emphasizes that reconciliation is not just a procedural formality—it is an essential component of value development. According to USPAP’s Standard Rule 1-6(a), appraisers must reconcile the quality and quant...

DOES REAL ESTATE APPRAISAL HAVE A FUTURE? Does real estate appraisal have a future?  This question comes in to me all the time.  And it’s important! We’ve invested a lot of time and money to become appraisers.  Did we waste all that?  There are some who say yes to that question.  Generally, they point out the changes that are coming to real estate appraisal (or have come).  Then they point out the...

USPAP, Verification, and Bernoulli’s Fallacy.  That’s a mouthful!  What does it mean?  I’m assuming  you’ve heard of USPAP.  Verification is an important component of USPAP’s SR1-4 (learn it, love it, use it).  But it is likely Bernoulli’s Fallacy is something you don’t know about.  Yet.  You will, though.  It is going to become really important in residen...

USPAP and choosing comps is likely a poor name for this podcast.   It’s a poor name since USPAP’s Standard One is silent on the choice of choosing comparable sales.   In fact, all Standard One (see SR1-4(a)) says about the sales comparison approach consists of twenty-seven words.  None of them is the word comparable , nor the words comparable sales.  So, no, Standard One in USPAP is no...

USPAP does not specifically use the term, “…from your workfile…”   However, you’ll find your state appraisal board does.  In fact, you’ll find the board uses this phrase a lost.  Given that, let’s spend some time on what the phrase means how we appraisers must comply with it. “From your workfile” means just that.  Under USPAP’s Standard 1...

USPAP doesn’t mention time adjustment s.  They are not useless or unnecessary.  Measuring and analyzing changes in market conditions are critical and fundamental to real estate appraisal. Indeed, they are the foundation of an accurate opinion of value. This is simply because such a value conclusion has as its base a specific date in time.  This is the effective date of appraisal. So, from wi...

A hill to die on.  That sounds way too serious for a real estate appraisal podcast, right?  These are supposed to be about USPAP , and education , and more practical stuff.  But I’ve been studying on this topic for some time.  Frankly, what AMCs do (or don’t do) does not bother me as much as it does some appraisers.  Those appraisers complain that AMCs do not distinguish between their...

To comply with USPAP can be such a pain in the neck!  For example, take what’s happening now.  In the past, a commission was a commission and nobody gave any thought to it.  But now, it might be nothing we appraisers should worry about, but it also might be a sales concession.  If the commission inflates the purchase price over what it would have been otherwise, we appraisers have to account...

There’s too much going on in AppraisalWorld.  It is essentially impossible to keep track of what’s going on.  FHFA just announced, in the most neutral of tones, that appraisal waivers could now be had, under certain conditions unheard of before.  Again, conditions apply, but waivers are going to be available up to a 90% loan-to-value ratio (and 97% with a property data collection requi...

Financing concessions and USPAP !  More on this?  Haven’t we heard enough on concessions, cash equivalency, and stuff they don’t teach us in appraisal school?!  If you listen to what Fannie and Freddie have to say on these topics, the answer would have to be an emphatic “NO!”.  Why?  Because Fannie and Freddie continue to tell us we are not making the necessary adjustment w...

What do technicians, mechanics, and engineers have to do with USPAP and Real Estate Appraisal? Maybe nothing. But, at this point, it is easiest to conclude that a technician is one who knows that something should be done, though not necessarily how, when, or why.  Technicians, mechanics, and engineers understand there is a process involved somewhere.  A technician understands this, too, but for wh...

One of the purposes of this podcast is to make you mad.  Another is to open your eyes to the power the analytics of the cost approach have to analyze sales.  Another is to anger you.  About what?  About the depth of its questions and what is likely to be the shallowness of your answers to them.  With any luck at all, this podcast will do both.  If it does, then you’re paying attention.  Thank you!...

This question comes up – a lot!  It is common for reviewers to conclude the appraiser did not support, for example, the GLA adjustment.  So the appraiser gets all bent out of shape and shouts, “I supported my adjustments!  Right in the narrative I write the GLA adjustment is $65 a square foot!  How can that reviewer say I did not support my GLA adjustment!?”  Now it is time to go...

When  you think of USPAP and the State Board , chills run up and down your spine, right?  In any given year, the typical real estate appraiser has less than a five percent chance of getting that letter from a state appraisal Board.  But what happens when that letter thuds on your desk?  It is not a time to panic, but it is a time to pay attention.  Close attention.   Life will go on.  You’ll...

USPAP and Functional Obsolescence?!  You ask, “Tim, haven’t you covered this topic here on the podcast, as well as a bunch of other times, places, venues, and symposia?”  Yes I surely have.  But that was the other functional obsolescence.  Today, on this podcast, I’m going to talk about the true functional obsolescence.  Yes, the functional obsolescence the market really ab...

There are some of our appraisal fellows whose grasp of the concept USPAP and Competence is yet to be as strong as it could or should be.  In a 15-ish minute podcast, it is simply not possible to look into this subject with any depth or conviction.  So we won’t.  But we will look at what USPAP says about the topic.  Note to our friends on the ASB:  In the next 7-hour USPAP update class, perha...

This podcast sports a metaphysical title.  “USPAP:  Questions and Reflections”.  Why this title?  Who in their right mind wants to think about USPAP?  B-O-R-I-N-G!  I’ll concede that point.  But somebody has to think about it.  And, as a USPAP instructor, I get paid to think about it.  Really, I get paid to teach it.  But before I can teach it, I choose to think about it first. ...

USPAP and the Public Trust is a topic we appraisers do not address all that often.  Perhaps we should, since there is confusion on the issue.  At the base of this confusion is the fact appraisers think our job is to protect the public (i.e., the buyer, the lender, the client, the borrower, etc).  In reality, this simply is not true.   What USPAP does say is that it is USPAP’s job to promote...

When it comes to USPAP and written reports, the response of the typical appraiser is to stifle a yawn.  “Who cares about writing reports?  We just fill in a form, send it to the client, and hope it does not come back for revisions!”  But, adding the narrative addenda items to the form is report writing, isn’t it?  And a common response to that is, “I just cut-and-paste stuf...

When you think about USPAP and ROVs (Reconsiderations of Value) , gentle and peaceful thoughts are not what come to mind.  Somebody wants you to reconsider your value conclusion.  That is a gentle way to say, “I think you’ve made a mistake!”  But let’s face facts – we all make mistakes.  And given the state of the appraisal art – with our dependence on 90-year-o...

There’s a lot of crap on the Internet about civilization’s pending collapse.  There is even stuff on the Internet about USPAP and Sasquatch .  But there is nothing on the Internet about USPAP and Hot Sauce.   So, I figured I’d add to the Internet’s mindless clutter and post about Hot Sauce, USPAP, their relationship, and the demise of western civilization.  But the only pro...

WOW!  “USPAP, Sasquatch , NAR, and Comparable Sale s” is one helluva name for a podcast!  That’s true, thank  you.  But given that the ramifications of the Sitzer-Burnett are obvious but still unknown, invoked Sasquatch.  And the fact cash equivalency adjustments to comparable sales may become more prevalent than in times past brought all of those concepts together into one big,...

USPAP, analysis, and synthesis are terms we do not hear all that often.  That’s a shame, too.  This is because, according to USPAP, a credible appraisal and a non-misleading report are the results of analysis and synthesis.  Yes, Standard One is the appraisal development standard.  And Standard Two is the appraisal reporting standard.  But we know this, so what is so special about analysis a...

Preview, Foreshadow, Predict.  In the context of a real estate appraisal, what do these mean?  Some time ago, I did a podcast on writing the appraisal backwards.  I never meant this to confuse anybody with this.  What I meant was to impart wisdom.  It is wise not to open the reporting form on your computer the instant the appraisal order arrives.  Rather, once it arrives, do the appraisal first. ...