Join host Will Jarvis as he sits down with Robbe Demey, a statistician at Valuebase visiting from Belgium, to explore why property tax matters from both philosophical and economic efficiency perspectives. The conversation covers the Georgist case for land value taxation, the dire state of property tax in Belgium where valuations haven't been updated since 1975, and the persistent challenge of vertical equity in mass appraisal models. Robbe Demey also dives into how cross-validation and ensemble modeling techniques are pushing the frontier of property tax assessment, and what it would take to fix property tax across Europe.

• 00:00 – Introduction and welcome with Robbe Demey, a Valuebase statistician visiting from Belgium
• 01:30 – Why property tax matters: the philosophical fairness argument and economic efficiency of land value taxation
• 03:50 – Natural resources, property rights, and the philosophical case for taxing land versus labor and capital
• 06:00 – Land, violence, and the Georgist proposal for peace through fair resource distribution
• 08:45 – Land reform lessons from Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Asia — and why land value tax is a better mechanism
• 11:20 – The state of property tax in Belgium: outdated 1975 valuations, second-toilet quirks, and government secrecy
• 14:30 – What it would take to fix Belgian property tax through courts, better valuation, and public support
• 16:30 – EU tax policy, VAT coordination, and why property tax works best at the local level
• 17:30 – Vertical equity in property tax: why mass appraisal models systematically overtax low-value and undertax high-value properties
• 22:45 – Cross-validation and holdout sets: why rigorous model testing is essential and underused in the industry
• 27:15 – The frontier of mass appraisal: better locational data, ensemble models, and the wisdom of crowds approach
• 31:30 – How to fix property tax in Europe: reducing income taxes, rallying support, and convincing landlords everyone benefits

Join host Will Jarvis as he walks through practical, hands-on ways assessors can use free AI tools to improve their cost approach valuations. In this solo episode, Will demonstrates how tools like Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, and ValPal can be used to extract market depreciation from sales data, build effective age rubrics, standardize condition ratings, generate taxpayer-friendly explanations, and run ratio study checks — all with paste-ready prompts attendees can take back to their offices immediately.

• 00:00 - Introduction and overview of the session on using free AI tools for the cost approach
• 02:22 - Why the cost approach breaks down: depreciation tables, effective ages, and condition ratings
• 04:44 - How time constraints — not lack of knowledge — keep these inputs from being maintained
• 07:00 - The free AI toolkit in 2026: Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, and ValPal compared
• 10:15 - Ground rules for using AI safely: stripping identifiers, verifying outputs, and checking IT policy
• 13:20 - The prompt pattern every example follows: role, data, task, and proof
• 16:30 - Extracting market depreciation from your own sales in one prompt, with a live Florida county example
• 20:00 - Effective age: replacing gut feel with a written rubric and using AI vision on field photos
• 23:30 - Condition ratings: running outlier scans and drafting a standardized field guide with AI
• 26:30 - Explainability: generating plain-English cost approach explanations for property owners
• 28:00 - Closing the loop: running ratio study checks with IAAO formulas via AI
• 30:00 - The 30-minute weekly routine, common failure modes to avoid, and concrete next steps

Join host Will Jarvis as he presents a live session at a NYSAA meeting on how modern AI tools can help property tax assessors work more efficiently. Will breaks down how large language models actually work, their strengths and weaknesses including hallucinations and privacy concerns, and shares best practices for prompting these models to get the best results. The session covers real-world use cases like drafting taxpayer correspondence, summarizing legislation, and processing refunds, and highlights free tools including ValPal, RatioPal, and other resources built specifically for assessors.

• 00:00 - Introduction to Will Jarvis and Valuebase's mission to build AI tools for assessors
• 02:45 - What is a large language model and how the underlying technology actually works
• 06:30 - Why LLMs mimic reasoning rather than truly reasoning, and what that means for users
• 07:30 - Real-world use cases: refund processing, email management, and extending office capacity
• 08:45 - Strengths of LLMs: writing, summarizing, researching, and brainstorming
• 09:30 - Weaknesses: hallucinations, math errors, out-of-date knowledge, and privacy concerns
• 12:45 - Best practices for prompting: clarity, context, examples, roles, and even flattery
• 15:45 - Free tools recommended: Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity
• 18:15 - Practical use cases: taxpayer correspondence, legal document summaries, and reusable prompt libraries
• 19:30 - Introduction to ValPal and its New York State property tax model
• 21:00 - Audience Q&A: using AI to translate legislation and summarize new exemption laws
• 23:00 - Overview of additional free tools: RatioPal, AgePal, AskDocs, and the depreciation table builder