All of the progress, challenges, and solutions that have been developing under the Republic Geodetic Authority’s (RGA) roof had the chance to be presented for the first time at the 88th Annual International Association of Assessing Officers’ (IAAO) Conference held the last week of August. Russ Thimgan, expert mass appraisal consultant to the RGA, gave a presentation titled “Implementing Mass Appraisal in Serbia: Challenges & Creative Real Property Data Collection,” a presentation that was met with much intrigue and, overall, with much delight.
Of all the concepts covered in Mr.Thimgan’s 90-minute presentation, many attendees were struck by the positive performance of the RGA’s mass appraisal models, the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to supplement population data, and their consistent generation of price indices (a beneficial by-product of the RGA’s hedonic models). The level of innovation, creativity, and transparency with which the RGA met and resolved the challenges of mass appraisal was what resonated most with the audience in Boston. Some American attendees even confessed that what the national Serbian mass appraisal system achieved in under seven years, their own local jurisdiction hadn’t been able to successfully implement for more than 50 years. Though there’s still much work to be done, Boston’s conference seems to have proved one thing: that Serbia isn’t afraid to raise the international standards of mass appraisal.
