Tagged: neighborhood

Visualizing Market Activity Using Graphs & Trendlines 4

Visualizing Market Activity Using Graphs & Trendlines

Spreadsheets and graphs are powerful tools for appraisers. With proper data, and incorporated into reports, they can enhance your professionalism and decision-making ability.  Appraisers, this article will highlight the process I use to bring clarity to my research and analysis of ‘comparable’ properties. This completed process becomes an exhibit in all my appraisal reports because it helps the Intended User(s) visually see what the market has been doing over a known time period. The exhibit graph also indicates a daily rate of change for the sales over the time period, which can then be applied as a ‘time’ (market) adjustment...

Hit Pieces & Diatribes Against Appraisers Based on Census Tracts 15

Diatribes Against Appraisers

What’s even more frustrating to me is none of the well-known appraiser organizations have offered any public rebuttal to any of these hit pieces, or explained how the appraisal process works as a way to defend appraisers… Census Tract data delineating RACE of the population is the only ammunition the people doing these hit pieces can use to attack appraisers. Appraisers, this is a long article but it’s important, as it reveals how you are being discredited in the work you do. Yet, ‘we’ must begin doing some introspection of what we are or have been doing, and make necessary...

UAD Composite Property Data Info Released to the Public 18

UAD Composite Property Data Info Released to the Public

Appraisers, since 2011, the GSEs (called the ‘Enterprises’) have been collecting and analyzing appraisal data using their proprietary Uniform Appraisal Dataset (UAD) which was overlaid on four of the standard GSE appraisal forms, SFR’s and Condo’s only. Ever since then, appraisers and other users have complained that none of that data was available. Well, now it is available, but not highly detailed down to specific properties. See below for the web site link. Some of that data is granular down to specific Census Tracts, which appraisers seldom, if ever, use in their market analysis to determine comparable sales and their...

Remove Predominant Price from the New Forms 16

Remove Predominant Price from New Forms

Something that has ‘stuck in my craw’ or ‘frosted my cookies’ for years is the nonsense about stating a specific “PREDOMINANT” price for neighborhood homes. And then being forced to explain why the Opinion of Value is not precisely that number, and if not, why not. Real estate is IMPERFECT. Properties, especially comparables, seldom, if ever, sell for the very same or extremely similar prices. If that is the case, how can there be an exact “PREDOMINANT” figure? The possible exception to this are highly dense urban developments where the new construction homes are cookie cutters, and the builder sells...

Appraisers... Restoration Value Magicians? 44

Restoration Value Magicians!

And just like that, real estate appraisers from across the country have now added a new line item to their résumés, websites and marketing material: RESTORATION VALUE MAGICIAN. Oh wait, haven’t some AMCs and others already claimed to be such magicians when it comes to this topic? The pandering and save face attitudes of some of these organizations is concerning. Instead of looking at the big picture of infrastructures, the neighborhoods, the cities and more, to determine what sort of things can help areas identified as “Black neighborhoods”, they want to blame the appraisers. Here is a thought. How about...

Baltimore Racial Bias Lawsuit 12

Baltimore Racial Bias Lawsuit

When reading over the Baltimore document, it appears painfully clear (to me) that there is a competency issue exposed. Folks, below is the Baltimore court paperwork for the latest appraiser bias suit that recently ‘hit the fan.’ This document is fairly specific, in that it reveals quite a lot about the two appraisals performed, including the home locations for the ‘comps’ used. The attorneys representing the plaintiffs are from the same Washington, D.C. firm that The Appraisal Foundation hired to examine USPAP. That firm was the one which has provided new ‘discrimination avoidance’ verbiage being considered in the USPAP Third...

Fannie's Equity Plan: The Drinking Game 32

Fannie’s ‘Equity’ Plan: The Drinking Game

What makes equity so invidious as a governing tenet is that it involves not just helping people of one racial or cultural group but it has the effect of knocking struggling members of disfavored groups out of the game. One type of parlor game relies on players’ ability to maintain their memory, logic and articulation – all while getting blotto. These alcohol-fueled “think and drink” games are highly challenging. Even Britain’s royal family engages in such diversions if Netflix’s “The Crown” is to be believed. The games have names like “Bizz Buzz,” “Ibble Dibble,” “Never Have I Ever” and “Roman...

Census Tract Info Used Against Appraisers 5

Census Tract Info Used Against Appraisers

“Census tract boundaries do not necessarily define the subject’s market…” Appraisers, of all the issues I’ve written about or questioned since 2006, this topic about your knowledge of, and concern about, Census Tracts has overwhelmingly been the largest response ever, several hundred within just a few hours of posting!  To refresh, the questions were these: Do you know where the Census Tracts boundaries are in the areas you work? When you research and select comparables for your reports, do you pay any attention to Census Tracts? Do you know the racial composition of Census Tracts in the areas you work?...

Sales Comparison Approach is Racist, as per Academics 26

Sales Comparison Approach is Racist

“…the modern appraisal industry perpetuates racial inequality through its continued use of the “sales comparison approach”… the sales comparison approach persists as the dominant method of assessing home value… the sales comparison approach — the most used method for contemporary residential appraisals — perpetuates inequities through maintaining historical hierarchies and current racialized definitions of comparability…” Appraisers, here’s a YouTube video that you MUST view. This person’s, Dr. Elizabeth Korver-Glenn, PhD, work is one of the key reasons why there is so much chatter about racist appraisers in the US. Her discussion of her book ‘Race Brokers‘ begins at the 8:30...

Bias. Blame the Messenger. It's easier 17

Bias. It’s Easier to Blame the Messenger

No one wants to be the messenger… Appraisers are messengers. Why is their message so despicable? So biased? The messenger. Psychology research easily points out our tendency to dislike the bearer of bad news. It’s also intuitive. Bad news messengers do not smile when they bring the news. Sometimes they even look guilty. We humans can be really basic. We see a correlation between the bad news, the frown, and the messenger. Appraisers are messengers. Why is their message so despicable? So biased? In the entire real estate transaction, everyone wants to make a deal. Brokers want to make a...

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