Blue Oak Blog

The path to become a Certified Real Estate Appraiser in California is as follow:

First, you need 150 hours of specific appraisal classes. When you finish the education requirement, you can submit, with the appropriate fee, your application for an AT (Appraiser Trainee) license. After the State reviews the application, they have 90 days, they will issue you a letter that lets you take the State test, with the appropriate fee. If you pass the test, you are allowed to submit your application for the issuance of the AT license, with the appropriate fee.

With the AT license, you are allowed to appraise any real estate property in the state. The only provision is that a qualified appraiser must co-sign the report. By co-signing, the qualified appraiser to stating that he/she inspected the property and is taking responsibility for all of the data and conclusion reached in the report. The qualified appraiser must examine all the data in the report, check the comps used and see if there are better ones, check the adjustments and make sure they’re supported, teach the trainee something, and take full responsibility for the report. The process slows down the qualified appraiser’s production. It costs money to take on a trainee.

The Appraiser Trainee is required to get at least 2,000 hours experience. This is about one year of full time employment. The experience must include analytical work. Inputting data onto forms, by itself, isn’t accepted. This experience must include 12 months with work performed. This means you need to show work performed in 12 different months. If you don’t do any work in a month, you can’t count that month. The biggest hurdle is for the AT to find a certified appraiser that is willing to lose time and money to train a potential competitor.

After you have the 2,000 hours experience, can submit your experience list, with the appropriate fee. The list includes all the reports on which you’ve work, signed by the Certified Appraiser associated with each report. The state also wants sample reports submitted. The state has 90 days. They review these reports and if the reports and listings are found compliant, you may submit an application, with the appropriate fee, to upgrade your licensed to AL (Appraiser Licensed).

Now you are a licensed appraiser. You may still appraise any real estate property if it is co-signed by a qualified appraiser. You can also work without a supervising appraiser, but you have limitations. You can appraise any residential property, from 1 to 4 units, where the transaction value is less than $1,000,000. You can appraiser any commercial properties valued at less then $250,000.

Once you have your AL license, you are over the biggest hurdle. For the certified license, you need an Associates of Arts degree or 21 units of specific classes. You need 50 more class hours, 500 more experience hours, and 30 months with experience. Once completed, you can submit your application to upgrade, with the appropriate fee. The state has 90 days. If everything is acceptable, you will receive a letter allowing you to schedule the upgrade test, with the appropriate fee. Upon passing the test, you can submit the application for the certified license, with the appropriate fee.

You then receive the AR (Appraiser Residential) license. You can appraise any residential properties with less than 5 units on them. The shortest amount of time you can do this is 3 years. Typically, you’re looking at closer to 5 years. Much of that time is spent as a trainee where any pay agreement at all is a good deal. The time in classes is not paid and you need to pay for the classes. Every time you deal with the state, there are fees. There are also ongoing education requirements for license renewals.

You can work with a firm or by yourself. Either way, there is overhead to pay. A firm will take a percentage of each job, but you can concentrate on appraisals and you have support. The level of support varies from firm to firm. On you own, there is no office support. This means you also have to handle all the normal office functions of any business. This chews up time. You also need to cover taxes, phone, internet, databases, MLS, and many other expenses. One way or another, you don’t get all of the fee.

There is also an AG (Appraiser General) license. This is has more requirements and allows for the appraisal of commercial properties, from apartment complexes to high rise office building and shopping centers.