Principle of Substitution, ....

[Mejappz]

I see, it must be a conspiracy!

You asked me to run a data set for you, and I offered to do so. I didn't get your reply. You know that is true. I was acting in good faith, and you are not.

 

[TerryRohrer]

That is all good and fine but larger set of data is always inferior to smaller set of data. No question about it.

In keeping with your usual, you know it all, even after admitting you don't have a clue about any form of statistical analysis. I have seen the above pontification from you before. It still ranks as the least informed, most ignorant claim ever made in these pages.

 

[Joe Flacco]

You asked me to run a data set for you, and I offered to do so. I didn't get your reply. You know that is true. I was acting in good faith, and you are not.

I just gave you the screenshot of my email with the CSV file that you requested. And then I sent a follow up email the next day to see if you need anything else.

I didn't bother bugging you about afterwards because I knew you wouldn't be able to make sense of it with your George Dell methods.

Just keep whining. Boohoohoo

 

[RCA]

A few of you might remember the ZAIO wars way back when. As an appraisal application their plan had some good points. The appraiser would personally qualify each of the datapoints prior to its usage, then they'd build however many models they needed for a market area including the development of their adjustment factors for each market segment. That appraiser-qualified data was then fed into their AVM. As I recall they had protocols for model testing and calibration to refine those models.

There were other aspects of their program that were wholly unfeasible and unmarketable but those are arguably separate issues that had little/nothing to do with the analyses, opinions and conclusions of the appraisers who were signing off on those results.

I was involved in the "ZAIO wars". I think one big factor in their downfall was that at that time - Zaio appraisers had to buy a rather large "Zone" and then commit to manually taking pictures of all houses. An enormous task - which all came to nothing when Google started sending their cars around to photograph all homes in a very efficient manner. A few appraisers around here invested heavily into many zones. I remember going to a conference once and XXXXX XXXXX (XXXXX Appraisal) really stared at me, - sadly (that is to say he looked very sad when he was staring at me). I forgot how many zones he purchased. Anyway, he is still in business and has always done very well. But, I gather, being highly successfull in appraisal -- can be a very stressful life.

​

 

[Joe Flacco]

In keeping with your usual, you know it all, even after admitting you don't have a clue about any form of statistical analysis. I have seen the above pontification from you before. It still ranks as the least informed, most ignorant claim ever made in these pages.

How many variables are there in real estate?

 

[shrubberyvaluation]

I don't think you know what you are talking about. First, if an appraiser has been "trashed in public opinion", they may simply not want to work as an appraiser anymore, because it was never that financially rewarding in the first place. And, when you say "public" - you don't mean the real public, you mean AMCs and lenders (most likely).

Where you are wrong, is that there are certainly a few high-level appraiser managers who have been repeatedly trashed in public and professional opinion, gone out of business, and then popped up again and again as founders of new appraisal companies. Some having had their license revoked for years got it back and just kept going. One of the appraisers who hired me in the very beginning was rather successful - but eventually lost his license. He was making well over $600K a year with his own residential appraisal company but eventually lost his license because his opinions were a little too aggressive for the OREA (now BREA). I can believe that he didn't like to sign reports by trainees or give them copies of their reports so they could get their licenses. For me, it was like pulling the tooth out of an elephant. Anyway, after losing his license, he apparently handed his company over to some other appraisers to run - and I assume kept up a very good income stream. He went into photography (portrait, fashion, real estate, ...), traveling, and all kinds of other things. You can still see a number of websites with his pictures - and him traveling in Thailand and other exotic places. Hmmm. What a life. I think he is about a year younger than me. I imagine he has settled down in Thailand or some such exotic place - he would be about 75 now. His websites haven't been updated since several years ago, so hard to say. The last pictures show him as being very overweight, so maybe he now has health problems. I simply don't know. He was a pretty sharp appraiser and could run off regulations at a moment's notice. But, the moral of the story is that many of these people are quite smart and it's really not that easy to put them down.

Look at say the Marin City case. I do mean the public, the public by and large might not know the appraiser now but say a lender hires that appraiser, the borrower googles the name of the appraiser and finds out they were part of a lawsuit alleging bias and then the borrower wants to be compensated. So a lender would not want to use that person in the first place because their name is tainted, regardless of how good of an appraiser they are.

 

[RCA]

Look at say the Marin City case. I do mean the public, the public by and large might not know the appraiser now but say a lender hires that appraiser, the borrower googles the name of the appraiser and finds out they were part of a lawsuit alleging bias and then the borrower wants to be compensated. So a lender would not want to use that person in the first place because their name is tainted, regardless of how good of an appraiser they are.

Oh she is now famous: https://www.millerandperotti.com/StaffProfiles

License intact, not a scratch.

Look, I have seen, I know of - many appraisers, highly successful ones, who have had major problems and just kept going. All kinds of legal and board problems. Yep. Bull-headed enough to get in trouble and keep going.

 

[George Hatch]

I was involved in the "ZAIO wars". I think one big factor in their downfall was that at that time - Zaio appraisers had to buy a rather large "Zone" and then commit to manually taking pictures of all houses. An enormous task - which all came to nothing when Google started sending their cars around to photograph all homes in a very efficient manner. A few appraisers around here invested heavily into many zones. I remember going to a conference once and XXXXX XXXXX (XXXXX Appraisal) really stared at me, - sadly (that is to say he looked very sad when he was staring at me). I forgot how many zones he purchased. Anyway, he is still in business and has always done very well. But, I gather, being highly successfull in appraisal -- can be a very stressful life.

​

If a zone appraiser were to qualify the properties as they were listed then that would greatly reduce the amount of wasted effort. Listed on the 1st, "driveby qualification" on the 8th, usable as a 'did inspect" comparable for the next year. Or even as the subject of a 2055, which is what ZAIO's focus was on at the time. Some of those listings won't sell, but sooner or later most of them will sell.

As I recall, they were only qualifying 6 elements besides the location itself; which that doesn't seem to me like too few or too many. Input to their database right on the spot via them working on a tablet. I was running the numbers of listings in my county and I came to the opinion that 6 or 8 appraisers could handle the entirety of the listings in the metro areas in a given year. That's far fewer - but much larger - zones than ZAIO was selling but all that does is add to the consistency. The same appraiser rated all the comps in that area.

My point being that the technology at that time was sufficient to enable that type of methodology. It would be foolish to believe the tech and the AI won't continue to further advance into our business. I see it entirely as a question of when, not if.

 

[Joe Flacco]

Only for the simplest of properties can an algorithm or large dataset methods be effective. In which case it doesn't even matter if it is three comps or 30. Anything even a little bit complex is better off with manual analysis.

 

[TerryRohrer]

How many variables are there in real estate?

Countless. How many parcels of real estate are identical in every one of those variables? How many buyers have identical life experiences while simultaneously affected by exactly the same circumstances, and make identical decisions as each other in every circumstance in life? The fact is, except as the buyer in purchase of your house, you don't have a clue what other buyers and sellers think or act upon in a real estate transaction. You know what you think "you" would do in their place, but you don't have a clue. It is simply a fantasy to believe you are recreating the motivations of every buyer and seller in the market. You don't have a clue about 99.9% of their motivations. What are facts, though, are sale prices and property characteristics. The results of a those differing motivations is what we analyze.