Residential valuation behaviour in the United States, the United Kingdom and New Zealand

This paper investigates the valuation processes employed by United States (US), United Kingdom (UK), and New Zealand (NZ) residential valuation experts. Professional appraisers from all three countries participated in a series of valuation experiments that revealed (i) switching from familiar to unfamiliar property settings did not alter valuation behaviour, (ii) valuation behaviour was consistently non-normative, and (iii) the processes employed by US appraisers differed from those of UK experts but not NZ experts. These behavioural differences are attributed to differences in the normative training and business cultures of the countries. Descriptive models of valuation behaviour are developed and compared.