It is time to reinstitute this 1932 policy

[TerryRohrer]

From the Appraisal Journal, Volume 01, Number 1, October 1932 (My recommendation is to have the original penalty inflated to today's dollars, so about $118,000 or $119,000):

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

If you want appraisers to skew their appraisals to the low side by choosing the low end of sales, then that would certainly do it. I overheard an appraiser telling a friend that he would never under any circumstances value a house for more than the contract price. Is that fair?

I just finished a report of a property that certainly I would never consider paying that much for the land tract - some 100 acres. The place is on the end of a dead-end road of over a quarter mile. It was badly washed out and not publicly maintained after the first 100 yards or so. Rough as a cobb. The buyer is a developer who also runs cattle. Why he would pay that I have no idea. But there were no comps that were much cheaper and a sack full on bad gravel roads that has sold for more. I cannot read their mind. What are they thinking? Holding? Using for pasture? Renting? Surely they are not going to develop the site? This same builder has been known to sit on a tract for five years or more before he develops it into smaller sites But this property is a minimum of 10 miles to the nearest town and that town is only 500 people and does not have a grocery, only one gas station, and a dollar general. WTf?