Author: James A. Bryant and Donald R. Epley

Start Page: 115
End Page: 129
Volume: 15
Issue Number: 1
Year: 1998
Publication: Journal of Real Estate Research

Abstract: This article examines the issue of cancerphobia or public fear that has been used in recent court cases as the basis for damages to residential and loan value. Special attention is given to methodology used by the appraiser to estimate the damages from electromagnetic fields and the residential property adjacent to the lines. All commonly used research tools suffer from measurement bias from the difficulty of statistical specification. Matched pair analysis will remain as the predominate tool of choice as it accurately reflects the public's opinion of value. The appraiser will need to be more careful to extract an accurate time adjustment to make older comparable sales useable in the current market. All users of comparable sales for property that is stigmatized will need to devote more resources to collection and sharing.