Opinion ID: 1931243
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Resources for Appraisers in Baltimore

Text: The appraisers and experts on appraising in this case primarily employed two types of listing services. First, all the appraisers relied upon the same property data bases. Before 1997, the data base used in Baltimore was the Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors' Multiple Listing Service (MLS), also called Crabnet. Beginning in 1996, MLS began integrating into a new regional data base system, the Metropolitan Regional Information Systems (MRIS). As part of the transition from MLS to MRIS, the two systems experienced significant problems, including discrepancies between the two data bases and high lag times between when a sale or other event occurred and when it was available in the data base. By the beginning of 1998, these problems had been resolved and only MRIS was available as a source of current data. [5] The appraisers also used deed reporting services. The two deed reporting services employed by appraisers in this case were SpecPrint and LUSK (also known as Experian). These services compile information on deeds from local courthouses and send the information to appraisers on a periodic basis, typically monthly. There is a lag time of approximately ninety days between when deeds are recorded and when the information is sent out by the deed services.