Appraising Our Future

Lost in Translation

Years ago, my appraiser mentor received a request to clarify whether the property we had just appraised was considered a working farm. The subject was a newer one story home on multiple acres, zoned agricultural. My mentor responded in the standard manner, stating that the property was not a working farm.

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The underwriter, unsatisfied, submitted the same request again. After the third or fourth round of explaining why the subject was not a working farm, my mentor, slightly exasperated, finally said, “Alright, Kelly, here’s what we’re going to say.”

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The appraiser has explained multiple times that the subject is not a working farm. However, the underwriter continues to seek clarification. While there are crops growing on the property of the three-leaf variety, cannabis is currently illegal in the state of Wisconsin.

As marijuana is an illegal substance, the crops being grown are not legal, and the property cannot be considered a legal working farm.

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When the underwriter requested this language be removed, my mentor replied, “I’ll do it, but only if you promise not to ask us a sixth time whether or not this is a working farm.”

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This continued unnecessary need to repair the language reminds me of the scene in The Blind Side where Sandra Bullock’s character is setting up a room for her soon-to-be-adopted son, Michael. When Michael says, “I’ve never had one before,” she replies in a slightly sarcastic tone, “What, a room to yourself?” to which he responds, “A bed.” If she were an appraiser and had said, “A bedroom of your own,” instead of “a room of your own,” she might have been cited for using subjective language, as not everyone has a bed.

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This fixation in the real world on rephrasing and even altering language has reached absurd levels and it is now infusing itself into the world of real estate. ?Recently, an underwriter asked me to remove and replace the term “family room,” claiming it was subjective. “Family room” is a commonly understood term for a secondary living room. I couldn’t call it a “great room” because that was also subjective, and there was already a “living room” in the home. Although, I wonder how long it will be before I’m asked to replace “living room” because “living” might offend any ghosts on the property.

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Pressed for time, I resorted to calling it an “F Room.” Naturally, this too was deemed unacceptable, and I eventually settled on “media room” as a compromise.

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As language becomes increasingly scrutinized, commonly understood terms are now deemed relative to the observer’s experiences. This leads to absurdity, where appraisal writers are so restricted that they struggle to use basic English to describe a property. And in doing so we are not clarifying; we’re complicating.? If we continue down this path where every word is deemed potentially offensive and therefore off-limits to the writer, we risk reaching a point where the absence of language, much like the absence of data, could result in a misleading report.