The Ongoing Evolution of Appraising Residential Properties: A New Edition for a New Millennium (Appraisal Institute‪)‬

Development of a New Edition In 1900, James Murray, the editor of the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), said that "The English Dictionary, like the English Constitution, is the creation of no one man, and of no one age; it is a growth that has slowly developed itself adown the ages." Like other time-tested reference works, the Appraisal Institute's textbook Appraising Residential Properties, first published in 1988, continues to develop. It is the product of an ongoing collaboration among succeeding generations of residential real property appraisers. As time passes, old ideas are revisited and refined, and new ideas are erected atop the firm foundation provided by the original development team. Unlike the OED or the English Constitution, though, each new edition of Appraising Residential Properties clearly reflects the age of its origin, and each edition serves as an evolutionary leap forward, more akin to Stephen Jay Gould's "punctuated equilibrium" than a gradual Darwinian evolution.