Got my Certified Appraisal Reviewer results back last week: 78% overall, which clears the passing threshold. I'm a staff appraiser at a regional bank and my supervisor pushed me toward the CAR designation as part of a department-wide credentialing initiative. Honestly I was skeptical about how useful it would be day-to-day, but the exam content turned out to be more practical than I expected.
The exam is 110 questions and you have 3 hours to complete it. I finished in about 2 hours 15 minutes and went back through my flagged questions with the remaining time. About 35% of the content is on USPAP compliance — standards, advisory opinions, and the scope of work rule specifically. Another big chunk covers reviewing residential versus commercial appraisals, which require pretty different analytical frameworks. If you work primarily on one side, make sure you study the other.
What caught me off guard was the section on reviewing appraisals for government-backed loans — FHA, VA, Fannie and Freddie requirements. I work almost exclusively with conventional loans and some of the agency-specific requirements were things I'd never had to think about. I probably lost 4 or 5 questions in that section that I should've had. Still passed but it was a wake-up call about where my blind spots were.
One logistical note: the CAR exam is offered through Appraisal Institute testing at designated locations, not Prometric. Make sure you're registering through the right portal — I almost booked a Prometric seat thinking it was the same system, which would've been a mess to sort out.
The FHA and VA content hit me the same way. I'd been doing conventional residential for 6 years and suddenly had to know HUD handbook requirements and VA appraisal protocols I'd never touched. Failed my first attempt partly because of that section and made sure to study it specifically for attempt two.
Good call on the Appraisal Institute testing portal distinction. The registration process is less intuitive than Prometric and it took me three emails to their support team to get my scheduling sorted. Give yourself more lead time than you think you need.
Congrats on the 78%. USPAP questions are really the foundation of the whole exam — if you know the standards cold, a lot of the scenario questions become easier because they're basically asking whether a specific scope of work decision complies with USPAP. Once you see that pattern it's more manageable.
Do you remember roughly how many questions focused specifically on the scope of work rule? That's the thing that varies most between reviewers in practice and I'm curious how detailed the exam gets about it versus just knowing the definition.