I was curious as to the total number of appraiser there are in the city of Long Beach
I went to the OREA website looked them up. Then, I decided to see how many are independent fee appraisers and how many are not. Any appraiser listed as working for a bank or a government agency I assume are not independent fee appraisers.
So, we have a Total of 149 Appraisers in Long Beach, of which, 140 are Independent Fee Appraisers. Look at the number of Trainees, only 14. Do you think we are going to have a problem in the future as some Appraisers retire or leave the industry? That is a different topic all together.
Next I was curious to see how many closed sales of Condos and SFR’s there were in Long Beach for the past 4 months. I also wanted to see how this would average out to work for those Appraisers. I did not include Certified General Appraisers since they focus mainly on Commercial work. I also did not include Trainees since they can not really do work on there own. That left only Certified Residential and Licensed Residential Appraisers, a total of 84.
I then took the total number of closed sales and divided that by the number of Fee Appraisers, as you can see that was between 2.7-3.0 Appraisals per Appraiser in Long beach, not including January. I guessed at a conservative post HVCC/AMC fee for an appraisal of $300. Basically each Appraiser would be making $775 -$866 per month.
Wow!
This does not include the fact that appraisers from other areas come to Long Beach.
Basically, there is not enough work for the Appraiser that remain to make a decent living on, couple that with the low fees being paid and the fact that we lost most of our clients when the HVCC went into effect, it is no wonder the ranks are thinning.
To me this looks like a good argument to band together and demand a higher fee.
What do you think?
