About Appraisal Payments

We realize that it is every appraisers goal to get paid for their work.

Appraisal fees for properties in the United States vary widely due to the complexity of the assignment and location of the property.

We do not set your appraisal fees. The Code of Conduct does not prohibit appraisers and lenders from negotiating fees directly as long as they are not related to the valuation of the property. You may set your fee based on the square footage of the property but not based on its estimated value.

The new Code of Conduct does not allow borrowers or lenders to pay appraisers directly. All payments must be made though an appraisal management company or a settlement (escrow) company.

Our goal is to maintain the traditional relationships between licensed appraisers, lenders and borrowers within the legal framework of today's complicated regulatory system.

The simplest way to ensure that appraisers get paid for their work is to collect a check made out to Appraisal Management Online at the time of the appraisal and mail it directly to us. (We provide simple deposit slips to ensure you receive credit for the check.)

You may also have the lender send us the check (made out to Appraisal Management Online) for the appraisal fee -- the new Code does not allow them to pay you directly.

We deposit the checks in our trust account at Wells Fargo Bank. We mail appraisers a check on Friday of every week for all appraisal fees that were deposited or cleared during that week. Escrow and corporate lender's checks clear immediately upon deposit. For personal checks from borrowers and others, we allow two weeks for the checks to clear.

We deduct a 10% administrative fee from each appraisal payment, that includes both scheduling and processing. We believe that is the lowest fee in the industry.

While we accept credit cards, we do not encourage it. All banks charge a credit card processing fee (currently 3.5%) which we have to pass on to the appraiser. It is to everyone's advantage to collect a check whenever possible.