It's Only an Opinion: An Appraiser in Court.

• Date: 01 November 2019
• Author: Gaffney, Gary S.

It's Only an Opinion: An Appraiser in Court by Henry J. Wise

Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word, there are three kinds. The first kind depends on the personal character of the speaker [ethos]; the second on putting the audience into a certain frame of mind [pathos]; the third on the proof, or apparent proof, provided by the words of the speech itself [logos]. Persuasion is achieved by the speaker's personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible.--Aristotle

As a dirt-lawyer (and real estate broker) for more than three decades, having handled disputes over fee and leasehold evaluations, condemnations, mortgage financings, partitions, and even appeals of government-loan buybacks, by sheer necessity, I have always relied on expert opinions of value as a matter of course. As an academic, I have always looked for an appraisal resource that was more than just a bunch of numbers.

In It's Only an Opinion, appraiser Henry Wise provides just that and more. Wise provides an inside look at the appraisal profession, one formed over decades in the trenches. Armed...