EXPOSED
Automated valuation models already do comparable-sales selection, adjustment math, and market-trend analysis better and faster than a human with a spreadsheet, and Fannie/Freddie appraisal waivers plus hybrid 'desktop' appraisals have removed the human from a growing share of residential transactions. What persists is the site visit — walking a property to catch functional obsolescence, deferred maintenance, illegal additions, and condition issues no dataset captures — plus the state certification and signature that carry legal and E&O liability on the report. Modal worker here is a residential appraiser; commercial/complex-property appraisers and tax-appeal expert witnesses sit in a distinctly safer tier.
Roughly flat across the period, with year-to-year wobble.
Median pay $57,010 → $67,960 -4.6% in real terms
This line is counted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics — the one figure on this page that isn't a judgement of ours. Headcount moves on demand, offshoring, demographics and the business cycle, and automation is one term among several, often not the loudest.
So a falling line is not evidence that AI did it, and a rising one is not evidence that it won't. Both happen in this register: some occupations resist automation and shrink anyway, others are highly automatable and keep growing. The marked year is 2020.
BLS projection, 2024–2034
+3.8%
Percentage only. The projection counts a different population from the 57,070 above — it includes self-employed workers, which for this occupation is most of them, so the two headcounts are not comparable.
Growing, and only partly exposed
The BLS expects +3.8% more of these jobs by 2034, and at 49/100 the work is only partly exposed — some tasks are automatable, the core of the job is not. Nothing here is in tension.
Different clocks. The score is what current AI could do to this work today. The projection is how many of these jobs will exist in 2034. Everything between the two — how fast employers actually adopt, whether demand grows in the meantime — is why they can point opposite ways without either being wrong.
~6,300 openings a year on average, including replacing people who leave.
AssessorAppraiserGemologistTax AssessorArt AppraiserCity AssessorSole AssessorTax AppraiserBank AppraiserField AssessorHome AppraiserLand AppraiserCounty AssessorDeputy AssessorField AppraiserField InspectorStaff AppraiserClaims AppraiserEstate AppraiserReview AppraiserAppraisal ManagerAppraiser AnalystJewelry AppraiserValuation Manager
Holding it up: liability shield . Weakest point: trust premium .
Mixed — a routine tier and a judgment tier An 8 reflects that comps selection, grid adjustments, and the URAR narrative are increasingly machine-drafted while the inspection and reconciliation of a non-conforming property still need a person on-site — the mixed score, not lower, is because condition and functional-obsolescence judgment resists digitisation even as the analytical core has fallen.
Some physical or field component A 10 is the site visit: measuring GLA to ANSI standards, crawling attics and basements, photographing roof and mechanicals, and driving neighborhoods — physical and uncontrolled, but a lot of the day is still desk work in a forms platform, which keeps it well below field trades in the 15+ range.
Licensed human required and personally liable At 14 the state-certified appraiser signs the report and personally holds the USPAP obligation, carries E&O, and can be disciplined or sued for a defective valuation years after closing under FIRREA Title XI licensing — the reason it isn't higher is that appraisal waivers and AVMs are increasingly permitted to bypass that signature entirely, so the shield covers a shrinking share of transactions.
Meaningful discretion A 10 recognises the genuine discretion in reconciling divergent value indications, deciding which sale is truly comparable in a thin market, and supporting a highest-and-best-use conclusion — but USPAP, Fannie Mae Selling Guide requirements, and the URAR form constrain the process enough that most residential assignments follow a prescribed path rather than an open call.
The verdict above describes this occupation as a whole. Almost nobody does the typical version of a job — tick what's actually in your week and see how your own mix sits.
Your task mix speaks to task resistance (8/20 here) — how much of the day's work current AI already does. That is the dimension the boxes above are about.
It cannot move the other three. Liability shield (14/20) is whether the law requires a licensed human to sign. Trust premium (7/20) is whether buyers specifically pay for a person. Judgment and accountability (10/20) is whether the role exists to own consequential calls. Those are facts about the occupation's standing, not about which tasks are in your week — a paralegal who does only trial exhibits still holds no licence. Together they are 31 of this occupation's 49 points (63%).
Embodiment (10/20) is also a property of the work rather than the worker, but we don't tag individual tasks as physical or not, so the picker can't tell you anything about it. That's a limit of this tool, not a claim.
Did we get the list right? Tell us what's missing — the tasks are written from the outside, and you're reading this from the inside.
No occupation passed every test: close enough to property appraisers and assessors on skills and subject matter, at least 10 points more resistant, no big jump in training, no new licence, no pay cut, and not shrinking on its own. That happens for 223 of the 654 occupations here that aren't SAFE, and it is worth stating plainly rather than leaving the section off.
The usual reason is that exposure travels with the skill profile. The jobs most similar to yours tend to be exposed for the same reasons yours is, so the near neighbours don't clear the gap — and the ones that do are a different kind of work, not a transfer of what you already know. Read that as a limit of this method, not a verdict that you're stuck: it only compares whole occupations, and it cannot see specialisation, industry, or anything you'd bring that isn't in a federal skill survey.
The moves above are yours to make. This is the other half: what would have to change in the world for the occupation itself to score higher. None of it is in any one person's gift, but it is where the floor actually comes from. Scores here are not a one-way ratchet. Only two of the five dimensions — task resistance and embodiment — track what machines can do. The other three track law, what buyers will pay for, and who is answerable, and those move in both directions, often in response to the same pressure AI creates. If every lever below landed, this occupation would score around 70/100 — SAFE.
Task-mix shift: as waivers and AVMs absorb tract-housing refinances, the residual caseload concentrates in tax appeals, eminent domain, estate/divorce litigation, and non-conforming property — work where the appraiser defends a number under cross-examination and owns the call. Recognizable if the share of appraiser revenue from litigation/assessment-appeal work rises against origination work
Same two-tier shift: the surviving assignments are complex, non-comparable, and partially-observable properties (contaminated sites, mixed-use, special-purpose) where comps are thin and AVM confidence intervals are unusable. Watch for Fannie/Freddie publishing waiver-eligibility rules that carve out exactly these categories
State legislation following the anti-bias push (e.g. post-PAVE task force rules, or Fannie/Freddie's UAD redesign) that makes an identified human appraiser the accountable party for fair-lending discrimination claims on any valuation, including AVM-derived ones — creating a signature no model can supply
A state appraiser board or the Appraisal Standards Board (USPAP) rule explicitly requiring a certified appraiser to physically inspect and personally sign any valuation used for a federally related transaction, closing the 'property data collector' loophole that currently lets unlicensed gig inspectors feed hybrid appraisals; conversely, ASB codifying AVM-output review as an appraisal assignment with full USPAP liability attached to the reviewing appraiser
An assessment jurisdiction or GSE requirement mandating interior inspection at defined intervals (some states already require periodic physical reassessment cycles), plus insurer-driven condition inspections after catastrophe losses in FL/CA, which put a body inside the structure rather than a drone over it
Narrow route only: parties in adversarial settings (tax appeal boards, probate courts, divorce) pay specifically for a named, deposable human whose credentials can be attacked. Watch for state tax tribunals adopting rules refusing AVM evidence without a testifying appraiser
The limit. No plausible route to a broad consumer trust premium: the buyer of a residential appraisal is a lender optimizing cost and cycle time, not a homeowner choosing a professional, and GSE waiver policy points the other way. The realistic ceiling is a smaller occupation with higher per-worker scores — the litigation and complex-property tier hardening while the residential origination tier thins.
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 2,590 | $82,920 +22% |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 2,240 | $91,600 +35% |
| Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX | 1,360 | $64,220 -6% |
| Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA | 1,250 | $65,240 -4% |
| Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ | 1,200 | $51,250 -25% |
| Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX | 1,070 | $75,930 +12% |
| Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN | 970 | $76,520 +13% |
| Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV | 830 | $82,150 +21% |
| San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA | 650 | $105,580 +55% |
| Vallejo, CA | 30 | $103,510 +52% |
| San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles, CA | 70 | $102,840 +51% |
We have no reported case of a named organisation automating this occupation. Not one deployment, not one announcement.
That is worth saying out loud next to a score of 49. The verdict above is about what the work exposes — what current AI could do to these tasks. It is not a claim that anyone has done it. For this occupation those two things have come apart completely: the capability argument is on this page, and the evidence column is empty.
Has AI actually changed your work? One tap, anonymous, and the running tally is public. Nothing else is asked of you.
Rather than check back: get the digest and we'll tell you what changed — or watch a single occupation from its own page.