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Abstract
Real estate appraisers represent a unique and very interesting form of business
organization characterized by both cooperation and competition that is quite unlike any
of the normal models of competition (such as perfect competition, oligopoly, or
monopoly) that were studied in introductory economic theory courses. The interesting
part for an economist is that appraisers are competitors and yet seem to depend on each
other. Appraisers are clearly competitors; that is, they all compete for the same set of
business opportunities available in the marketplace, just like farmers or barbers or
dentists compete for a share of their perspective markets. At the same time, appraisers
cooperate through the sharing of information about comparable sales, both through
informal networks as well as formally through a sales data bank.