Once upon a time, there was a rich nation which valued many things. There were many owners and “wannabe” owners. The owners wanted to be richer and the wannabes wanted to be like the owners. They all liked value. Some people even became “valuers of things.” They claimed to know value.

Value was price. It was obvious. Nothing to talk about here. Move along.

The owners needed money they didn’t have. So, they got help from loaners.

The loaners put up most of the money and became interested. The loaner-owners also wanted to be rich. They could get rich by “selling money!”. (Actually, they were only renting the money, but no one wanted to hear that.) And best of all, they were not renting their own money. They were renting other people’s money (OPM), and the other people didn’t really own the money either. It was just sort of out there, all guaranteed, completely safe.

What is important is that everyone liked value, but everyone needed to have someone say the value is fair. They were able to get others to declare the value as fair, but some valued fair as high as possible. “Uppraisers” were in demand.

A few of the dealer wheelers got together. The loaners became lender benders. They found liar buyers. And they found uppraisers.

All the owners, the wannabe owners, and the loaner-helpers liked uppraisers a lot because they helped richness for all. Everything worked well so long as “value” equaled price!

Until it didn’t.

~Reproduced with permission from George Dell, SRA, MAI, ASA, CRE - an excerpt from an article in the Appraisal Buzz, Thirteenth Edition, Fall 2022, Price vs Value, as found on page 27