October Research To Survey Appraisers About Pressured Home Values

Blanche Evans' article in Realty Times asks: Are appraisers pressured by lenders, brokers and others to hit the purchase price number in real estate? A survey scheduled for this spring means to find out. Full Story . . . October Research, publisher of Valuation Review, has announced its intention to measure pressure on appraisers to overstate property values. I've already responded to their survey and I expect that they'll find similar results to their 2003 survey where they reported over 55 percent of professional appraisers felt they had been pressured to inflate property values and over 25 percent of the appraisers surveyed said they felt such pressure on almost half of their orders. October Research does not have any preconceived expectations that more appraisers will say they are being pressured to hit the "right" number.