...the stupid tourist walking up to wild elephants.
The way I took what the other poster was referring to in regards to large swaths of data, was garnering it from non-competitive locations to that of the subject, which would skew the data.
If I were as sensitive as some, I might think I was just called a wild elephant and object! Maybe with a grenade!
What I commonly see in almost every post dismissing regression and similar analysis (almost always from someone who has never attempted using it, much less attempted to understand it, and certainly has no clue how enlightening the results can be), is some suggestion that anyone using it relies on irrelevant data from an unrelated market of unrelated properties using data that was dumped into their computer by regression gods and never seen or analyzed for accuracy or completeness, with the only input from the "analyst" being the push of a button. Many suggest that an appraiser can control the outcome by inappropriately selecting which data to include, and some are fond of saying, "you can lie with statistics."
I have never seen any criticism of regression analysis, or any argument against its use, that can't be applied, verbatim, to any appraisal method. Which begs the question, if your going to lie, cheat, and steal anyway, why would you invest time and money and effort into tools that net you less than an ordinary crook? In fact, most of the same vociferous, pontificating fools often report in other threads on the same day how some appraiser did the unthinkable while claiming to use their own favored techniques.
I fully believe I am better equipped to deal with any appraisal issue that comes along than most. If this forum is representative of my "peers", I dont have a single concern. My hope remains that someone will step up and make a sound, somewhat reasoned case that regression and statistical analysis should be eschewed in favor of "traditional" appraisal methods (maybe my only concern with that is finding a dinosaur to ride to inspections if I go this route), or some others, in addition to Bert, who will provide additional insight into what they are doing (a big ask given the chorus of ignorant idiots who flock like flies to stink on sh*t to drown the discussion in mindless, baseless, useless, ignorant, dimwitted commentary).
Unfortunately, no substantive discussion regarding advanced analytical techniques has taken place in this forum since Austin and Steven Santora and Bert Craytor and Artemis Fowl and Terrel Shields and Dennis DeSaix and George Hatch and a few others (sorry I missed you, I was focused on what you were saying!) attempted to enlighten appraisers (almost all pre-2008). The highpoint of recent discussions is certainly the recently minted, "I have never heard of a buyer spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to purchase a "datapoint."
Mind you, I have no interest in a one sided coronation of modern analytical techniques. Reasoned, intelligent, logical, sound arguments against them would be more useful. Those have proven about as common as dinosaurs in the 37+ years I have been looking, so far!
