Book excerpt: This book takes a cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural look atmass appraisal expertise for property valuation in different marketconditions, and offers some cutting- edge approaches. The editors establish an international platform and present thescientific debate as well as practical feasibility considerations.Heretic and orthodox valuation methods are assessed based onspecific criteria, partly technical and partly institutional.Methodological evaluation is approached using two types ofcriteria: operational concerns about how to determine propertyvalue differentials between spatial and functional units of realestate in a valid and reliable way (technical criteria); and thekind of market circumstances being operated in (institutionalcriteria). While technical criteria are relatively well-researched,there is little theoretically informed work on the connectionbetween country context and selection of property appraisalmethods. The book starts with an examination of current mass propertyappraisal practices, presenting case studies from widely differingmarkets - from the American and Dutch, where regression-basedmethods have been used successfully for some time; to the EasternEuropean and other emerging economies, where limitations have to becompensated by focusing on the modelling assumptions. The second part of the book looks at sophisticated modellingapproaches, some of which represent combinations of elements fromtwo or more techniques. Whatever the exact modelling approach, therequirements are always high for the quality of the data andsuitability of the method. In the final section, methods areevaluated and compared according to technical criteria and againstinstitutional contexts.With its exceptionally wide coverage ofvaluation issues, Mass Appraisal Methods: an internationalperspective for property valuers addresses property valuationproblems common to different countries and approaches applicable inboth developed and emerging economies.