The Real Estate Counseling Group of America (RECGA) was founded in 1970 by William N. Kinnard, a former president of the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, who sought to bring together a small group of top U.S. real estate appraisal and consulting experts to meet regularly, consult with each other on complex topics, and serve as co-authors and co-references for a growing body of complex valuation literature.
The organization limits itself to 30 active members at any one time. Since its founding, it has counted among its membership many of the presidents of the Appraisal Institute, editors of numerous journals (e.g. The Appraisal Journal and the Journal of Real Estate Research ), heads of important institutes (e.g. the Weimer School, the Homer Hoyt Institute), and the authors of nearly three dozen books on real estate appraisal and analytical methods.
Market value or OMV is the price at which an asset would trade in a competitive auction setting. Market value is often used interchangeably with open market value, fair value or fair market value, although these terms have distinct definitions in different standards, and differ in some circumstances.
Real estate appraisal, property valuation or land valuation is the process of developing an opinion of value for real property. Real estate transactions often require appraisals because they occur infrequently and every property is unique, unlike corporate stocks, which are traded daily and are identical. The location also plays a key role in valuation. However, since property cannot change location, it is often the upgrades or improvements to the home that can change its value. Appraisal reports form the basis for mortgage loans, settling estates and divorces, taxation, and so on. Sometimes an appraisal report is used to establish a sale price for a property.
Comparables is a real estate appraisal term referring to properties with characteristics that are similar to a subject property whose value is being sought. This can be accomplished either by a real estate agent who attempts to establish the value of a potential client's home or property through market analysis or, by a licensed or certified appraiser or surveyor using more defined methods, when performing a real estate appraisal.
Hill & Barlow was a law firm in Boston, Massachusetts that was dissolved in 2002. Founded in 1895, the firm had been one of the city's oldest and most elite firms, and was also the 12th largest in Boston at the time of its dissolution, employing 138 lawyers. The firm was founded by Arthur D. Hill, known for defending the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti. Hill & Barlow was dissolved when approximately one third of the firm, mostly the real estate group, left, eventually joining Piper Rudnick in 2003. Remaining attorneys reported feeling "blindsided" by the unexpected upheaval, but those departing felt that the planned restructuring was coming too late.
The sales comparison approach (SCA) relies on the assumption that a matrix of attributes or significant features of a property drive its value. For examples, in the case of a single family residence, such attributes might be floor area, views, location, number of bathrooms, lot size, age of the property and condition of property.
Richard Joseph Tonry was an American politician from New York.
Yaneer Bar-Yam is an American scientist and activist specializing in complex systems. An expert in the quantitative analysis of pandemics, he advised policy makers on the Western African Ebola virus epidemic and founded EndCoronavirus.org, a global network of several volunteers formed in February 2020 to provide information, guidelines, and policy advocacy to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. He is the founding president of the New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI), an independent research institution that studies complex systems science and its real-world applications.
The Appraisal Institute (AI), headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, is an international association of professional real estate appraisers. It was founded in January 1991 when the American Institute of Real Estate Appraisers (AIREA) and the Society of Residential Appraisers merged. The AIREA and the Society were respectively founded in 1932 and 1935. Real estate appraisal emerged as a profession at this point in response to the crash of home values as a result of the Great Depression, building on the intellectual frameworks developed over the course of the 1920s by land value theorists like Ernest McKinley Fisher, Frederick Babcock, Homer Hoyt, and Richard T. Ely. As of February 2007, the Appraisal Institute has more than 21,000 members and 99 chapters throughout the United States, Canada, and overseas.
The income approach is one of three major groups of methodologies, called valuation approaches, used by appraisers. It is particularly common in commercial real estate appraisal and in business appraisal. The fundamental math is similar to the methods used for financial valuation, securities analysis, or bond pricing. However, there are some significant and important modifications when used in real estate or business valuation.
William N. Kinnard, Jr. was one of America's leading real estate educators, authors, and experts in the field of appraisal.
Joe Dally Whitley is an American lawyer from Georgia who was the first General Counsel for the United States Department of Homeland Security. He works in private practice at Baker Donelson and has been named a Super Lawyer, listed in The Best Lawyers in America®, named a ‘’2019 Lawyer of the Year’’, is AV® Preeminent™ Peer Review Rated by Martindale-Hubbell, and listed in Chambers USA: America's Leading Business Lawyers.
The American Society of Appraisers (ASA) is an American nonprofit organization which serves as a professional affiliation of appraisers of all disciplines. The organization is the largest multi-discipline, voluntary membership, trade association representing and promoting their member appraisers.
Mahlon "Sandy" Apgar IV is a housing, infrastructure, and real estate consultant to global corporations and government agencies, and a non-resident Senior Advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He is known as the "father" of the US Army's housing privatization program, the largest such public-private partnership program in the Department of Defense. He was a partner and senior advisor at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), and a partner at McKinsey & Company where he led its operations in Saudi Arabia, and a Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars where he wrote the playbook on public-private partnerships.
Helaine Fendelman is a generalist antiques, fine arts and collectibles appraiser, author, instructor and co-host of a PBS affiliated television show.
HVS is a consulting firm that specializes in providing services to the hospitality industry. As of 2020, HVS operated out of 47 offices located in North America, Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. HVS offers expertise across all types of hospitality assets, including hotels, restaurants, casinos, shared-ownership lodging, mixed-use developments, golf courses, and spa and wellness, as well as conventions, sports, and entertainment facilities. In addition to market studies, feasibility studies, and appraisals, HVS provides multiple hospitality services and specializations in areas such as executive recruitment, brokerage, hotel management, asset management, operational consulting, litigation support, court-appointed receivership services, hospitality interior design, tax advisory, and hotel brand and management selection.
The International Right of Way Association (IRWA) is considered the central authority for right of way education and certification programs, as well as professional services, worldwide.
Susan M. Wachter is the Albert Sussman Professor of Real Estate, and Professor of Finance at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, the Director for the Wharton GeoSpatial Initiative and Lab, and the co-director of the Penn Institute for Urban Research. She also co-directs the Spatial Integration Laboratory for Urban Systems at the University of Pennsylvania. As an economist, she is frequently sought for comment on real estate market trends in well known media outlets—a recent interview with the International Monetary Fund summarizes her views and research.
Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as growing crops, minerals or water, and wild animals; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, buildings or housing in general. In terms of law, real is in relation to land property and is different from personal property while estate means the "interest" a person has in that land property.
Jeffrey D. Fisher is an American author and professor emeritus of real estate at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business where he was the founding director of the Center for Real Estate Studies and Charles Dunn Professor of Finance and Real Estate. He is also a visiting professor at Johns Hopkins University and a member of the advisory committee at Sterling Valuation Group. He is the president of the Homer Hoyt Institute and is a research and education consultant to the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries (NCREIF). He is also a founding Partner in the Pavonis Group and a board member of RealNex.