About Us

Did you know?

Anytime the Department of the Interior buys, sells, leases, trades, or conducts any other type of land-related transaction, it must be done at fair market value to protect the public trust. AVSO is the only office within the Department with delegated authority from the Secretary to conduct appraisals to determine fair market value. 

Our Mission

Provide credible, timely, and efficient valuation services, ensuring the Department’s fiduciary responsibilities are met for Tribes and beneficiaries in trust and restricted-fee real property transactions and uphold public trust in federal real property transactions.

Our Staff

AVSO has a highly qualified staff of designated appraisers and specialists in geology, engineering, and mineral economics operating both independently and collaboratively on complex appraisal projects.

In number of appraisers on staff, AVSO is the third largest appraisal organization in the Federal Government, trailing only the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. With offices from Anchorage to Atlanta, Billings to Bloomington, and scattered all over in between, AVSO is geographically dispersed to provide the best coverage to its clients.

Our Clients

Bureau of Indian Affairs • Bureau of Land Management • Bureau of Reclamation • National Park Service • U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service • Additional clients within DOI as well as other federal agencies, as requested.

Our Services

In FY22, AVSO completed 3,563 appraisals on over 10.5 million acres of federal and Indian lands and 241 mineral evaluations on nearly 11 million acres. AVSO provides a variety of valuation services that include real property appraisals, appraisal reviews, tribal trust property valuations, mass appraisals, grazing lease valuations, valuations of right-of-way interests, market studies, rental schedules, mineral valuations, consultations on property value, concessions valuations, and more. Real property appraisals are required by law for most real property transactions including land acquisition, disposal, exchange, probate settlement, and rights-of-way. 

The types of property appraised include recreational, agricultural, commercial, industrial, and residential. Appraisal reviews are provided to ensure that all appraisal results are supported and compliant with applicable appraisal standards including the Uniform Appraisal Standards for Federal Land Acquisitions (UASFLA or the “Yellow Book”) and the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP). Most trust and restricted-fee property appraisals must be conducted in compliance with USPAP, whereas most federal land transactions must comply with the Yellow Book. Consultations provide valuation information and advice to Department and bureau management and staff attorneys and may also require testimony in court and at administrative hearings.

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Our Story

AVSO is the product of an evolution of the valuation function within the Department. Prior to 2002, appraisal was a bureau function and appraisal staff were employees of the five bureaus that AVSO currently supports: Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation), National Park Service (NPS), and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS).

 In November of 2002, the Office of Appraisal Services, which conducted all Departmental appraisals for Indian real property, was transferred from the Bureau of Indian Affairs to the Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians. In 2003, after a series of critical audits by the DOI-Office of the Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office, all appraisers within the land management bureaus were reassigned to a new office—the Appraisal Services Directorate within the National Business Center. Secretary Gale Norton recognized that appraiser independence is key to determination of fair market value and that to truly be independent, appraisers needed to be in a separate organization. This was reinforced by the Department of the Interior Office of the Inspector General in 2009, which concluded that the appraisal function ". . .must be organizationally independent of the agency realty personnel. . ." 

 In 2010, the Appraisal Services Directorate became the Office of Valuation Services and was moved from the National Business Center to the Office of Policy, Management, and Budget within the Office of the Secretary. In March of 2018, the most recent organizational change occurred and brought together all Departmental appraisal and minerals evaluation services under one organization, AVSO. The creation of AVSO as the Department’s single appraisal organization is the most recent effort to shore up the independence of valuation professionals and create efficiencies in operations that benefit the Department, its bureaus and offices, and American taxpayers. AVSO is finalizing the implementation of the most recent organizational change through a workload rebalancing effort to reduce duplication created by the consolidation and create additional flexibility in providing valuation services to the bureaus and offices within the Department. 

Public Law (P.L.) 93-638 Tribal Self-Governance and Self-Determination 

The 1975 Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, P.L. 93-638, gave Indian Tribes the authority to contract with the Federal Government to operate programs serving their Tribal members and other eligible persons. AVSO's Office of Tribal Sovereignty provides coordination and oversight of its Tribal Self-Governance and Self-Determination compacts and contracts with other Department offices and staff.