[rco8786]

Yea I believe that. In my state (Georgia) the randomization rules only came about after the '08 crash. I come from a family of appraisers, oddly enough, so I have an unusual amount of insight into the industry for a simple software engineer. Prior to the new rules my family's company had a set of clients (banks) that they would get business from, and they had to reach out and do marketing/sales/shmoozing to get new clients, like any other service business.

After the new rules, banks just bid for an appraisal into a black box and it gets fulfilled ~randomly. The family rolodex became pretty useless. So the playing field was leveled, and it's certainly a fairer process with better overall results for homeowners, but it also kind of neutered the whole appraisal industry since there's not really a good way to compete anymore.

Kind of going on a tangent here, but the appraisal industry is one of those "silver haired" industries that is not able to replace it's older workers who are retiring. It's unclear what the future holds for appraisals, but it seems inevitable that there will be some sort of pivotal change in the industry in the next decade or so.