The government or the mafia?

One of the more interesting gems of information I got from my realtor today - is about how the government continues to take over private business and nationalize it. She didn't put it that way. Those are my words. To be sure though, that is what they are doing if the story is accurate.

What she said was "Did you hear what they are doing to the appraisers"? Which I hadn't. So I asked her what she was talking about. She went on to tell me about how the government had just instituted an appraisal pool. She said all the appraisers were upset and they would be put out of business.

The way things used to work, a title company or bank would hire an appraiser to tell everyone how much a property actually was worth. These were all independent contractors. It used to cost around 650 bucks in California for a house appraisal.

Now, every bank has to use the same appraiser contractor pool, and the appraiser from the pool can only charge 250 bucks. Which sounds great for the consumer. Not so much for the independent contractors who mow must take a more than 50% pay cut or go do something else.