
After the collapse of the US economy and real estate market in 2008, a number of small home town real estate firms throughout the country merged with some of the largest nationally owned and operated real estate franchises in order to survive as ongoing entities. Equally as hard hit was the appraisal profession with the overhaul of the mortgage lending industry and the passage of the Dodd-Frank legislation leading to the rise of large scale nationwide appraisal management companies (AMCs), most of which, are owned by some of the largest banking institutions in the world.