During a panel on residential appraisals, experts posed technology as a way to make appraisals more efficient and less subjective, as regulators take steps to understand and counteract bias.

But tech adoption in appraisal might face an uphill climb. Appraisers themselves — and the regulatory standards they are held to — stand in the way of tech adoption, said Lyle Radke, director of collateral policy at Fannie Mae, during a panel hosted by the Mortgage Bankers Association.

“Appraisers are not PhDs in mathematics,” Radke said. “They’re never going to be able to really articulate how a complex model works.”