Real Estate Professionals Thank Governor Noem for Streamlining Appraiser Certification
PIERRE, S.D. – Today, several real estate professionals from across South Dakota thanked Governor Noem and the Department of Labor & Regulation (DLR) for their efforts to streamline the state’s appraiser certification process.
Governor Noem also posted a video explaining the importance of streamlining this process and laying out the facts regarding her daughter Kassidy’s certification.
“I’m a licensed supervisor for new appraisers. It is way too tough for young folks to enter this field,” said Brian Gatzke, an appraiser from Brookings. “South Dakota was one of just five states that forced new potential appraisers to take a license level exam early on in the process. There’s a roughly 30% passage rate for that exam. These are students who were getting A’s and B’s in their college classes, but they were asked to pass a 2nd-tier level exam at the entry level. These barriers to entry were an overreach of the regulatory authority. Governor Noem and the Department of Labor removed that entry exam, and my students will be better off for it.”
A shortage of appraisers is a nationwide problem, with total nationwide credentials steadily declining from 120,551 in 2008 to 95,731 in 2017. This problem is exacerbated in South Dakota because of prior barriers to entry in appraiser certification.
“As a realtor, it’s my job to get South Dakotans into the home of their dreams,” said Lisa Blake, a realtor from Pierre. “Unfortunately, there are only three appraisers currently working in Pierre, so it often takes two months for families to close on a home. There’s a definite shortage, and the restrictions need to be loosened so that more folks have the opportunity to enter this industry.”
“I’ve worked on both sides of the appraiser process,” said Chase Kristensen, a loan officer from Mitchell. “I know how difficult, rigorous, and lengthy it is to become an appraiser. I went through that process myself, and it’s unlike any other field I’ve ever witnessed. Now, as a rural banker, I’m seeing it take 60 to 160 days to get an appraisal ordered. Something needs to change, and I’m glad Governor Noem is taking steps to fix the process.”
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This is pathetic….doesn’t she realize EVERYONE will think this is just BS Spin after she got exposed this week
I would add….if Noem said anything or not, it is still wrong…she is the Gov ( your boss) who brings you in to talk about a situation where her daughter is present with the Governor’s lawyers and she either said something or she didn’t have to its implied…pass my daughter!
then you fire her! and pay her a settlement! How dumb is she or think that we are?
Kassidy Peters thanks her too.
If the shortage is so critical, why force out someone that is extremely experienced and was working hard to bring new appraisers into the field? What she did was unethical and wrong, and cost the state 200k.
anonymous at 2:11 pm It sounds more like this particular individual was NOT “working hard to bring new appraisers into the field.”
There should be questions asked and answered: what are the success/failure rates for the exam? What must an applicant do to retake the exam? Is there an arbitrary waiting period before the exam may be retaken? Does any part of the exam involve a practical test with subjective evaluation of the applicants’ performance?
I have observed what can only be described as abuse in the certification process for nursing assistants and can’t help but suspect something similar has been going on here.
I personally know of one appraiser who was working on being certified with her help, and now is at a loss of their next steps with her “retirement.” Perhaps your questions could be more easily answered if someone with experience was allowed to continue in their position. Trying to draw a parallel with nursing assistant certification is simply gaslighting.
anonymous at 4:21 AM: I am not gaslighting anybody, just pointing out that there are people who derive their self-importance by making things difficult or other people. I am reminded of a nurse I worked with at the packing plant; one of our tasks was doing pre-employment physicals. She seemed to think her job was to flunk as many people as possible. She would come up with the most obscure reasons why job applicants were unacceptable and couldn’t be hired. I was often asked to review her findings and do the physical exams over because she was rejecting so many applicants.
Having had experience with this personality type I would not be at all surprised if this were the case here.
As an appraiser for over 40 years I wished someone would have done this earlier. I have told people not to try to get into the business because it is so tough to get started. I have to say thanks to the Governor for trying to solve this bottleneck.
An appraiser for 40 years and now you think is the time to finally say something?
Glad I never had you working for me.
By streamlining she means she overrides the system on individual cases. Not really streamlining.
I don’t know. I think the system needs work. My husband and I have had problems getting appraisals, first when we bought our home, later whenever we wanted to refinance or do improvements.
The problem was always the same: the appraiser was sent out from Madison and by the time she arrived she had no idea where she was. The agent who handled the original sale of the property expressed astonishment that she didn’t realize how close it is to an I-29 interchange, Brookings County, or the Brookings school district. And she still doesn’t know where it is. Do they know how to read maps? An appraiser from Brookings would not have to travel so far and would not have that problem, but apparently Brookings has a shortage of appraisers. This has been a source of frustration and amusement for us for over 25 years.
I guess we are lucky Kassidy didn’t want to be a doctor
You people are nuts . I dealt with this individual whMiken I was in the House with local appraisers concerns. She made promises she didn’t keep and lied to us . It’s good that the dragon was disposed of .
Please expand on this and give certain facts and statements to back up these claims
1). If I remember correctly, during Covid, by Executive Order, the Governor relaxed certain licensing standards and requirements.
2). What the Governor discovered with regard to licensing of appraisers which has become excessively cumbersome, time consuming, and results in decreasing the supply and its corresponding increased cost is common throughout many licensing departments.
3). When licensing came into prominence, the world was different. The only way a consumer could know if a person was qualified and/or capable was they had a license. Now, with the internet and websites like yelp, consumers have both better and more detailed access to actual reviews. Licensing can be revamped in almost all areas and eliminated in others.
Thus, I hope the Governors experience here (as attested by Mark Peterson who is in the business and signed his name) will inspire her to aggressively look at all licensing boards, standards, practices, protocols, and requirements and make the proper changes for this century and not last century.
thanks, Troy.
Yes the governor needs to look at what is going on with other licensing boards, especially in those fields where there are shortages. Start with caregivers.
We’ve all heard there is a shortage of caregivers.
It’s been ten years since I retired but an anecdote about some nursing assistants is illuminating:
One was a young man whose job performance was exemplary, was sent to Sioux Falls to get certified. He had trouble locating the testing site and called me from the road for assistance so I knew exactly how late he was, only 5 minutes, by the time he arrived.
He was told he could not be tested because he was late. “I have to test the people who bothered to be here on time, I can’t waste my time on you” he was told.
There was a young woman there who had driven down from Brookings; “you aren’t on my list,” she was told. The girl protested that her supervisor knew it was the only day she could take the test; a simple phone call to the employer would have resolved the issue. But instead it was repeated, “you aren’t on my list, you can’t take the test.”
I knew three other nursing assistants who had already been hired, trained, and passed their employer’s probationary periods who failed the certification test as well. Two of them were nice young women, good nursing assistants, who had difficulty with written tests, probably a problem with reading comprehension; neither had finished high school. I can imagine difficulties with ESL applicants as well. Why somebody needs to be able to pass the written portion of a test in order to change adult diapers or soiled sheets is a question which needs to be answered.
There are probably multiple fields in which the certification process has been made unnecessarily complex, by people who get their jollies throwing their weight around just because they can.