About CART
The Center for Appraisal Research and Technology (CART) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit research organization dedicated to advancing mass appraisal through research, education, technology, and international collaboration.
Our ethos is simple: mass appraisal knowledge and technology should be democratized. The knowledge and tools needed to produce accurate, equitable, and defensible valuations should not be limited by geography, institutional resources, or access to proprietary technology.
Our Mission
CART's mission is to advance the accuracy, scalability, equity, and accessibility of mass appraisal worldwide through applied research, open technology, education, and global collaboration.
We help connect advances in data science, GIS, statistical modeling, and valuation research with the practical needs of the public institutions and professionals responsible for property valuation.
Our Vision
We envision a world in which every public valuation institution has access to the knowledge, technology, and expertise needed to produce accurate, transparent, and equitable property valuations.
We believe advances in appraisal technology should expand institutional capacity rather than widen the gap between jurisdictions with different levels of resources.
What We Do
CART works at the intersection of research and practice. Our work includes:
Technology and workflow modernization: We help government property tax and assessment offices evaluate existing technology, data, and workflows, identify gaps, and develop practical strategies for modernization.
Applied research: We conduct and support research on mass appraisal, valuation equity, spatial analysis, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and emerging methods for property valuation.
Training and knowledge sharing: We provide technical education and training for appraisers, analysts, data scientists, and public-sector valuation professionals.
Valuation quality control: We research and apply methods for evaluating valuation performance, equity, consistency, and reliability, helping institutions better understand where their systems are working and where improvement may be needed.
Open technology: We support research and development of open tools that make modern appraisal methods more accessible. This includes collaborative research and open application development with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
Pro bono international support: CART provides pro bono research and technical assistance to public institutions in low- and middle-income countries, as classified by the World Bank, where access to specialized mass appraisal expertise and technology may otherwise be limited.
A Global Research Community
CART is also a research community.
Our research lab brings together volunteer researchers and practitioners from academia, government, and private industry around the world. This allows people with different technical backgrounds, institutional experiences, and perspectives to collaborate on problems that no single organization or discipline can solve alone.
The goal is not simply to develop new methods. It is to test them, understand their limitations, make them useful in practice, and share what we learn with the broader appraisal community.
