It is not the number that fails. It is the support behind the number.

Scott D.W. Wiley, Certified Residential Appraiser

Scott D.W. Wiley has been in real estate appraisal since 1997. He came up through the Midwest as a field appraiser and then as a review appraiser, holding certification in six states and serving as Chief Review Appraiser for national appraisal firms, where the complicated and disputed assignments were his to decide. Today he runs Go2Appraiser, serving metro Atlanta and Northwest Georgia with estate, divorce, bankruptcy, tax appeal, pre-listing, land, and investment property valuations. He inspects every property personally and writes his reports the way he spent his career demanding other appraisers write theirs.

Appraiser: Scott D.W. Wiley
Certification: Georgia Certified Residential Real Property Appraiser
Licence number: CR432840
Practice: Private-client assignments only. No lender or GSE work.

How I got in

I started in this business in 1997 in Lombard, Illinois, as an appraisal coordinator at First American Appraisal Services, working for Diane Valadez. I ordered the work, chased the appraisers, and read reports I did not yet fully understand. It put me in front of the job every single day, and that turned out to be the best possible way in.

What actually made me an appraiser

A year later Fremont Investment and Loan hired me to open their Midwest appraisal division. I was licensed in Illinois while I was there and certified in 2000. But the license is not what made me an appraiser.

What made me an appraiser was a group of reviewers who took me into the field with them and let me come along on their inspections, then came along on mine. They taught me how to measure a house, how to build a report that holds together, and how to carry myself standing at a stranger's front door. That is still how I train the people who work with me.

The review chair

From there the work moved to the review chair. At GreenPoint I reviewed appraisals across the Midwest, held certification in six states, and averaged more than 85 reviews a month. I traveled to regional offices to work live files, trained underwriters and review staff, and pulled completed FHA and VA reports back out for field audit to see whether what was written on the page matched what was actually standing on the lot.

I sat between the people who ordered appraisals and the people who wrote them on disputed values. Later I served as Chief Review Appraiser at Act Appraisal and at eValuation ZONE, which meant the complicated ones, the unusual ones, and the ones nobody else wanted to sign off on landed on my desk. I also built appraisal companies, including a national appraisal management company I started in Chicago from nothing.

I moved to the Atlanta market in 2022 and have been appraising here since.

Why that matters to you

Most of my career was spent on the other side of the desk, reading other people's appraisals and deciding whether they were defensible. Thousands of them.

When a report gets challenged, by an opposing attorney, a tax board, a trustee, or the IRS, it is not the number that fails. It is the support behind the number. I know exactly where those reports come apart, because taking them apart was my job for years. So I write mine to survive that.

How I work

I perform the inspection myself. Straightforward properties typically deliver in 24 to 48 hours; complex properties and assignments can take a week or two. Fewer than one percent come back needing a revision on first submission.

I use MLS, county and assessor records, GIS, and paired market data, and I show my work so the conclusion can be followed by whoever reads it next.

Where I come from

I come from Midwestern and Southern people. My mother grew up on a cotton farm outside Hope, Arkansas. My father is from Decatur, Illinois. The family went from Decatur to Tulsa, and I spent most of my childhood in the Chicago suburbs, where I came up through scouting.

Outside of my kids, earning Eagle Scout in 1995 is still the accomplishment I am proudest of. Those two things, being raised around people who worked and being raised to finish what I started, are most of what I brought into this career.

The kind of work I do

Estate and date-of-death valuations.
estate and date of death
Divorce and equitable distribution.
divorce and equitable distribution
Bankruptcy.
bankruptcy
Pre-listing and pre-purchase opinions for people who want a number that is not attached to a commission.
pre-listing and fsbo
Property tax appeal support.
property tax appeal
Investor and portfolio work, including land, acreage, and large parcels.
investor, rehab, and resale
Litigation support, review, and testimony.
litigation support

Credentials, and how to check them

Active certification: Georgia Certified Residential Real Property Appraiser, CR432840. Active and verifiable.
Formerly certified in: Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, and Ohio.
FHA: FHA approved.
In practice since: 1997. In the Atlanta market since 2022.

Georgia licences are searchable through the Georgia Real Estate Appraisers Board, and every certified appraiser in the country appears on the ASC National Registry, which is free and public. Look me up. Look up anyone you are considering hiring.

Scott is not a VA fee panel appraiser and performs no VA assignments. The VA work described above was appraisal review, performed years ago for an employer. It is career history, not a service offered here.

If you have a property that does not fit a form, or a situation where the number is going to be looked at hard by somebody else, that is the call I want.