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Helping Appraisers Get Paid for What They’ve Built

 by Isaac Peck, Publisher

Most appraisal shops are one-person operations. The specter of the lone appraiser running their business in a spare bedroom and not socializing much with their peers has persisted for decades — and there’s certainly some truth to it.

However, one of the downsides to a solo-operator business model, especially with service businesses like appraisal, is that when it comes time to retire, these types of businesses are rarely saleable. With no (or few) assets, no staff and little goodwill outside of the name of the principal, most solo appraisers build their businesses for decades and then simply flip the light switch and shut the door on their business.

Bryan Reynolds wants to change all that.

A certified general appraiser, partner at Appraiser eLearning, host of The Appraisal Update Podcast, owner of Reynolds and Associates, and a partner at his two newest ventures — Legacy Appraisal and Consulting and Legacy Advisors and Consulting — Reynolds is a serial entrepreneur.

His latest ventures are particularly interesting and arguably well-timed, given everything the profession is facing.

Against a backdrop of a UAD 3.6 rollout (Nov. 2, 2026) that some stakeholders say will lead to 10 to 20 percent of residential appraisers hanging it up, and a sharp reduction of new people entering the profession, Reynolds sees an opportunity to help usher in new entrants to the profession while simultaneously helping appraisers get paid for the businesses they’ve built over decades when the time finally comes to step away.

Entering and Exiting the Profession
Reynolds sees real opportunity in simultaneously helping folks enter the profession, as well as working with appraisers who are about to step back and retire.

“Our vision is to help appraisers enter the profession and exit the profession,” Reynolds says. “What do most appraisers do when they’re ready to retire is they turn their light off and close the door. Their book of business, which in many cases represents 30 to 40 years of careful nurturing, just evaporates. They don’t get paid for it or rewarded in any way. We would like to help keep their legacies alive.”

Instead of just shutting the door, Reynolds explains that Legacy Advisors and Consulting is working with appraisers to set up an exit strategy that allows them to receive compensation for the first three to five years of retirement.

“We will ask them to stay with the company for a prescribed period of time,” Reynolds says. “Then we will put someone in their market, as well as our administrative and support team based out of western Kentucky. Basically, we want to see another appraiser step in and become them in that local market.”

Reynolds’ strategy requires the exiting appraiser to remain with the company for 12 to 18 months. If they want to retire, however, Reynolds requests they call a year in advance. Several interested appraisers have already reached out.

“I just talked to an appraiser who asked me, ‘What about the VA? I’m a VA appraiser. VA selects me to do the appraisal. How can I transition this business?'” Reynolds says. “Our position is that for every problem there is a solution. As appraisers, we solve valuation problems. As small business owners, we solve business problems every day. In that particular situation, that may require that they, instead of retiring completely, retire almost full-time. We can create a program for that individual as well. I’m confident we can work something out.”

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Helping Train New Appraisers, Too
Reynolds also wants to help new entrants to the profession find their feet and get started. Legacy Advisors and Consulting is also licensing Melissa Bond’s MPact Practicum coursework, a successful appraiser curriculum.

“We want to offer a pathway to becoming an appraiser to anyone in most locations across the United States,” Reynolds says. “We figured out how to do that. Our program includes virtual training, and we also do field visits in select cities. If we have a student in a particular location where it’s prohibited for us to travel there, we’ll team them up with a representative we have in their local market to satisfy the local requirements.”

The profession has no shortage of appraisers who lament the current environment, and the question lingers: Who would want to enter the profession at the moment anyway? Bryan Reynolds says: You’d be surprised.

In fact, while attending the Association of Texas Appraisers as one of the first events where Legacy is promoting itself, Reynolds reports that he met 10 interested individuals on his first day at the conference. One gentleman he spoke to was a software engineer looking for a change in careers.

“Some other appraisers he had spoken with the previous night told him, ‘It’s a dying profession’ and even discouraged him from making the leap,” Reynolds says. “I told him we’re going to be around a long, long time. He was very interested in working with us.”

The Path Forward
The most common reaction Reynolds gets is that the arrangement sounds too good to be true. He says appraisers who sit with the details usually come around, and one has already asked him to send over a contract. The way he frames it, the retiring appraiser finally gets paid for what took 30 or 40 years to build, the new appraiser inherits a client base instead of starting from zero, and the clients and communities those appraisers served keep someone who knows the market.

“I’m obviously passionate about what I do,” Reynolds says. “There have been a lot of roadblocks historically for people trying to come into this profession, and it saddens me when I hear about someone exiting it. We wanted to find solutions for both of those obstacles. So many appraisers work by themselves, all alone on a deserted island. When they need help, they don’t feel like they have anyone they can turn to. We wanted to build pathways for each of those areas.”

That means the training pathway has a destination attached to it.

“I’ve done mentorship and support for appraisers for years,” Reynolds says. “I wanted to build that on a bigger scale. If they get licensed and they want to work for us, we’ll have a place for them.”

The firm prospective appraisers would be joining is also not exclusively built around lender work. Legacy Appraisal and Consulting currently runs seven appraisers, three trainees and six support staff, with appraisers in Kentucky, Tennessee, Florida and Colorado. Reynolds says the plan is to be a full-service valuation shop rather than a refinance and purchase mill.

“We’re working on a class-action lawsuit right now in Kentucky and a construction defect case in Arkansas,” Reynolds says. “We do a lot of litigation support, divorce work, condemnation [and] bankruptcies. People are going to die, and people are going to get divorced. We want to provide those services throughout the region and the country, not just refinance and purchase transactions.”

Reynolds is also recruiting practicing appraisers who are tired of working alone, pointing to a team-based workflow that splits inspection and analysis between appraisers based on which part of the job they actually like doing. He credits Jeff Bradford with the line he keeps coming back to on this, which is that teams outperform individuals. The firm is also opening up the proprietary tools it has built in-house to appraisers who come on board.

Appraisers thinking about an exit strategy, and anyone looking at the training pathway, can find more at LegacyAppraisalandConsulting.com and LACappraiserpathway.com, or email info@LACappraiserpathway.com. Reynolds can be reached directly at Bryan@theLegacyAG.com.

Retiring? Your Liability Doesn’t Retire With You
Many appraisers who step away from the business often cancel their E&O policy on the way out the door. Unfortunately, that decision puts massive risks on the appraisers’ shoulders. E&O insurance is written on a claims-made basis, so coverage depends on having a policy in force on the day the claim is filed, not on the day the appraisal was signed. In other words, if you cancel or let your policy lapse when you retire, 15 to 20 years of coverage can disappear overnight. Because buyback demands and lender claims routinely surface years after closing, it’s important for appraisers to secure Extended Reporting Period (ERP) coverage, also known as tail coverage.

An ERP, or tail coverage, is a unique insurance endorsement that is needed when you retire or step away from your business. It keeps the claims reporting window open after a policy ends. Most carriers sell it as an endorsement priced off the expiring premium and cap the tail at a few years. OREP provides free lifetime ERP coverage to qualified insureds who have been with the program five years or more. Appraisers planning an exit should ask their agent what tail coverage costs and how many years it runs. Call OREP at (888) 347-5273 for high-quality coverage and excellent service or visit OREP.org.

About the Author
Isaac Peck is the Publisher of Working RE magazine and the President of OREP Insurance, a leading provider of E&O insurance for real estate professionals. OREP serves over 10,000 appraisers with comprehensive E&O coverage, competitive rates, and 14 hours of CE at no charge for OREP Members (CE not approved in AK). Visit OREP.org to learn more. Reach Isaac at isaac@orep.org or (888) 347-5273. CA License #4116465.