The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraiser Practice (USPAP) Certified General Appraiser Exam is a certification examination designed by the Appraiser Qualifications Board (AQB) and administered by a variety of administrators throughout the United States that is used to determine whether or not an individual has the knowledge necessary to appraise any property.
This exam, which is similar to the USPAP Certified Residential Appraiser Exam, assesses the individual’s understanding of a variety of topics related to appraising residential properties including factors that affect the value of properties, legal concerns, economic principles, real estate analysis, appraisal statistics, and a variety of other topics.
This exam, or an equivalent exam if another exam is offered by the local licensing authority, is required in order to become a certified general appraiser. A certified general appraiser is legally allowed to appraise any real property regardless of the number of units or value of the property.
The exam consists of 110 multiple-choice questions, 15 of which are not scored, that are related to the following areas:
- Real Estate Market (18%)
- Property Description (11%)
- Land of Site Evaluation (4%)
- Sales Comparison Approach (13%)
- Cost Approach (11%)
- Income Approach (18%)
- Reconciliation of Value Indications (2%)
- Uniform Standards (17%)
- Emerging Appraisal Methods (3%)
- Appraisal Statistical Methods (3%)
The exam-taker will have 6 hours to complete the exam and the exam-taker will receive a pass/fail grade based on whether or not he or she makes enough correct responses to meet or exceed the threshold set by the AQB or the local licensing authority. The exact number of correct responses required to pass the exam varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction depending on the exact version of the exam that each administrator is using.
In order to register for the exam, the individual interested in pursuing certification must have completed at least 300 hours of courses related to appraising property including the 15-hour National USPAP course or an equivalent course, a bachelor’s degree or higher, and at least 3,000 hours of appraisal experience with at least half of that time spent appraising non-residential properties. If the individual meets these requirements, he or she may register for the exam by contacting the local licensing authority for the area in which he or she is pursuing a career.