Why not? If you've exhausted adjustment for all the elements of comparison and you're left with a range of $270k to $285k, then neither is more, or less, supportable than the other. Pick one. What you're doing, though, is arguing at the extremes. Understandable, as you're grasping at straws, but it also serves a point. At the extremes of any range, you always introduce more subjectivity into the selection. Think of it as a normal distribution (if you know what that means). Within the first SD from the mean, you will have 68% of the observations. Within 2 SD of the mean, you will capture 95% of the observations. And within 3 SD of the range, you'll find 99.7% of the observations. It makes sense, then, that as you tend toward the extremes, you introduce more subjectivity into your selection. Or to put it another way: you raise the potential that your observation will not fall within the desired bucket.
That said, if your range truly is representative of the range of value for a given property as of a given point in time, then yes - $271k is just as valid as $284k.
Values are numbers... (to use a J colloquialism: duh).
What are they, if not numbers? Opinions? Estimates? And if either (or both), one would expect that they are expressed with a high level of certainty. Question: when someone has an expectation that an opinion of value is developed with a high level of certainty, what does that mean to you? A high level of experience?
If you've exhausted adjustment for all the elements of comparison and you're left with a range of $270k to $285k, then neither is more, or less, supportable than the other is false. A statment of an incompetent appraiser, imo.
A machine can learn that one of the numbers is better supported than another AI or an AVM using algorithms, can figure it out and would give either 270k or 285k a one of the choicds has a highe or lower confidence score.
Plus, the claim is false that neither is more or less supportable is false for appraisers and for buyers. MV assumes a well-informed or well-advised buyer, not an idiot who does not have a reason for why they paid 270k or 285k. People pay prices for a reason and there is a 15k difference between the prices. A normal person would notice 15k missing or added to their bank account.
If, for example, your subject is among the most upgraded of your comps, then it should be worth 285k rather than 270k. That speaks to competence. Unless one works for family lol?
All you write about is distribution and means etc. Do statistics then and not appraisals. It sounds like you have no idea why people pay certain prices or why one property sells for more or less than another one.
If you want to say values are numbers ( they are numerical prices of properties, not just numbers in an appraisal), however, if you want to say values are numbers, then here is a reason why either number is more credibly supported than the other - property characteristics or market conditions favor one number more than the other choice, for example.
Numbers by themselves do not mean much. They are neutral without context. But put in context, they mean many things. Take the number 150. By itself, it is neutral. But apply 150 to certain things. 150$ is cheap for a bar of gold but expensive for a slice of toast. 150 pounds is light for a six-foot-tall man but heavy/obese for a four-foot-tall child. 150lb might be a good weight for a five foot eight tall adult female. Apply that kind of logic to thousands of examples.
Is 1000 more than 1? Yes. as a number, or in nath. A kid knows that. But a question for a professional might be, is 1000 better than 1? That would depend. A thousand dollars is better than one dollar for income purposes. But if we are talking about a rat infestation, one rat in a house is better than 1000. If we are talking about a medical disease diagnosis, showing 1 cancer cell is preferable to 1000 in a slide. Etc. That is called context for the numbers. Context is really important for property valuation. The reason we train for a license.
You really have to ask if the "number" we give is an opinion of an estimate? Let Grok answer that. Normally, appraisers do not say we have a high degree of certainty. Appraisers reference competence and credible support for their opinions and analysis.