NOTE: Your state may accept PAREA or Practicum as an alternative to Trainee license with Trainee/Supervisory model.

Before you can become a licensed residential appraiser in Texas, the best way to start is to get your Texas Appraiser Trainee license. And before you can apply for that, you need to complete the minimum 75 hours of Texas Appraiser qualifying education in no longer than five years, broken up as follows:

• 30 hours of appraisal principles

• 30 hours of appraisal procedures

• 15 hours of Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP)

You’ll also need to complete a 4-hour Appraiser Trainee/Supervisory Appraiser (ATSA) Course. Before signing up for this course, you need to find a supervisory appraiser who will act as your mentor through completion of your experience hours (Step 3).

All qualifying education must be approved by the Appraiser Qualifications Board (AQB) of The Appraisal Foundation, and by the TALCB. You must complete all qualifying education within the five-year period prior to the date of submission of a trainee application.

Upon completion, you will need to apply with the state.

After obtaining your Texas Appraiser Trainee license, it’s time for the next step toward becoming a licensed residential appraiser: 75 hours of AQB-Approved real estate appraiser education. The Texas Board requires a very specific breakdown of this coursework.

Once you’ve finished your education, you must conduct at least 1,000 hours of actual appraisal experience. Additionally, those 1,000 hours must be completed:

• Under the supervision of a certified appraiser; and

• Over a period of at least six months.

This means that you must take no less than six months to complete your 1,000 hours of appraisals. To put things in perspective, if a trainee works 40 hours per workweek, they will complete their training in a little over six months. If, however, they put in any fewer than 40 hours per week, it would take longer. Here’s a helpful table to give you an overview of the timeframes you’d be looking at:

*This must all be completed under the supervision of a certified Texas appraiser.

After you complete your experience, Texas requires that you fill out an appraisal experience affidavit. This form is to ensure that the experience you completed is legitimate, and that there are no serious issues of incompetence or ethics violations.

If the application is accepted, you’ll be sent instructions on how to take the National Uniform Licensing and Certification Examination—but first, you must apply for your license.

Now that you’ve completed your education and training, it’s time to apply for your license! After registering an account on the TALCB site, you can apply for your license online, or via mail. The paper forms take longer to process than the online application and require that you include copies of all experience logs, course completion certificates, experience affidavit, and all other supporting documentation.

Note that along with your application, you must have fingerprints on file with the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), so they can run a background check. You’ll need to pass the background check in order to move forward in the licensing process. Since fingerprints are also a requirement when obtaining your Appraiser Trainee license, the prints should already be on file for this step, and you won’t need to do them again. However, fingerprints from another agency will not be accepted. You will not get your license if you do not pass the background check.

We should also note that there are licensing fees associated with getting your original (first-time) appraiser license:

• Trainee Appraiser: $250 + $5 Texas Online Fee

• Licensed Residential Appraiser: $400 + $5 Texas Online Fee + $80 Federal Registry Fee

In most cases, fees to renew a license are the same as the original license cost in Texas, and include the Federal Registry Fee each time you renew.

After completing your courses, logging your appraisal experience, and applying for your license, you are now eligible to take the National Uniform Licensing & Certification Exam.

For Texas, the test is administered by PearsonVUE. There is a $100 fee to take the exam, and The Appraisal Foundation has tips on the exam structure and some example questions that you can use to prepare. Additionally, we’ve compiled a few extra pieces of information about the exam:

• The exam is four to six hours long. Both the Licensed Residential Examination and the Certified Residential Examination take four hours to complete, and the Certified General Examination takes six hours to complete.

• There are 125 questions on the test. The National Uniform Licensing and Certification exam is composed of 125 total questions. Fifteen of these questions are considered practice, and answering those questions wrong does not negatively affect your score.

• A score of 75 points is passing. Scores for the National Uniform Licensing and Certification exam range between zero and 110 points. Each question carries an equal weight of 1 point. In order to pass, you must earn a minimum of 75 points.

• You can take the test more than once. The Appraisal Foundation allows you to take the test up to three times.

You get three attempts to pass the exam; after that, you must take 15 additional hours of appraiser qualifying education before trying again. After you pass the exam, you have two years from the date you took the exam to apply for a license.