A la mode recently released its first public edition of the Appraisal Fee Reference (AFR) which it claims is “an authoritative national analysis of independent appraisal fees.”

The AFR provides the median appraisal fees for each of 3,221 counties in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam said the company.

The Federal Housing Administration’s new appraisal guidelines require reverse mortgage lenders to ensure that appraisers are paid reasonable and customary fees, independent of what might be added on by an appraisal management company says a la mode. “The key is that the AFR provides lenders and appraisers alike a logical, legally defensible starting point for that fee discussion and for GFE estimation,” said Dave Biggers, Chairman of a la mode.

The report is compromised of fees derived from the hundreds of thousands of transactions utilizing a la mode’s Mercury Network and excludes reports ordered by known appraisal management companies, in order to determine the customary fees paid to independent free appraisers when they’re engaged directly without middlemen.

According to the report, the median appraisal fee over the last 12 months is $350. You can download a copy of the report for free here.