2026 Mid-Year Review Featured Company: Shepherd Associates LLC

Shepherd Associates LLC

Headquarters: Needham, MA
Founded: 1994
Services: Real Estate Appraisal and Review
States Served: MA, RI and NH
www.shepherdnet.com 
(617) 928-1778

What projects, initiatives, or types of work have been keeping your team busiest during the first half of 2026?
1. Assisting lending institutions in appraisal quality control, appraisal review, and appraisal management policies.
2. Assisting financial advisors and families in the generational wealth transfers in real estate valuation services.

What trends or shifts have stood out most to you so far this year within your industry?
Dramatic technologic shifts are taking place that are profoundly impacting on real estate valuation. 
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) Impacts. Appraisers – both residential and commercial - need to confront the challenges and opportunities that the full emergence of Artificial Intelligence bring as an essential tool. 
• Residential Appraising. Residential appraisers need to be prepared to adapt to new GSE reporting standards through UAD 3.6. The changes include eliminating the multiple legacy “static” forms, and replacing them with a single dynamic entry format designed to enhance residential appraisal reporting.
These changes are occurring now, in real time, not in some vague future. They are impactful.  Appraisers, analysts, and reviewers need to react and adapt. The shape of appraising will be remarkably different in five years – no – maybe even sooner!

What challenges or opportunities have had the biggest impact on your business during the first half of 2026?
Technological shifts represent transformative trends that have required adjustments and enhancements to our business model. Understanding the evolution in real estate markets around Boston is an ongoing challenge. Analyzing and making sense of transactional activity and understanding the nuances of submarkets and properties represent challenges in a volatile and uncertain climate.

As we look ahead to the second half of the year, what are you watching most closely?
No one thing stands out. Situational awareness is key. A number of trends that affect real estate activity vigilance. Development trends in all CRE sectors need to be observed carefully, including industrial and multi-family sections. Residential – 1 - 4 unit – markets need to be monitored to understand the interaction of continued high interest rates, low sales volumes and tight inventories. Global and domestic uncertainty and volatility bear close watching to understand their short- and longer-term impacts on markets, such as elevated energy prices and resulting supply chain disruptions and the effects of inflation on labor and material costs.