The credential ladder has four rungs. Trainee, licensed residential, certified residential, certified general. Trainee lets you do the work under a supervising appraiser who inspects with you early on and signs every report. Certified residential covers most one to four unit residential regardless of complexity. Certified general adds commercial. Each rung has its own qualifying education, experience hours and college requirement, and the exact numbers are set by your state board on top of the national criteria, so pull your state's checklist rather than a summary.
Order of magnitude on the residential path: roughly 150 to 200 hours of qualifying education including the national USPAP course, 1,000 to 1,500 hours of supervised experience spread over a minimum number of months, a national exam, background check and application. Money side: education $1,500 to $3,500, exam and license fees a few hundred, then the ongoing stack once you're working. Forms software like ACI or ClickForms runs $500 to $1,000 a year, MLS access $400 to $1,200, errors and omissions insurance $500 to $1,500, plus continuing education every renewal cycle.
Now the part that decides your question. Appraisal independence means an appraiser can't produce a lender relied appraisal on a property where they have an interest, and a lender won't accept one anyway. So the license won't let you appraise your own acquisitions for financing purposes. What you'd actually get is the analytical skill, which you can build faster and cheaper by paying an appraiser for a few consulting hours on live deals and asking them to walk you through their adjustment grid. That's usually $150 to $300 an hour and no exam.
