Richard M. Betts is a California Certified General Real Estate Appraiser and consultant in Oakland, California. He was educated at the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned B.S. and M.B.A. degrees in Business Administration, with emphasis in Real Estate. Mr. Betts has extensive experience as a fee appraiser and economist, including expert witness testimony before various superior courts, federal courts, tax court, arbitration panels, and assessment appeal boards. He has served as a member, and chair, of many arbitration panels on real estate issues. Mr. Betts holds the professional designations MAI, SRA, and ASA (Real Estate) and is a past president of both the Northern California Chapter 11 of AIREA and the East Bay Chapter 54 of SREA. For some years, Mr. Betts served on national committees of AIREA, including the National Editorial Board of The Appraisal Journal. Betts is the President of REAMUG, the appraisers' computer user group. He coauthored Basic Real Estate Appraisal, 7th edition, published by Cengage Learning in 2007.
Silas J. Ely received his B.A. Political Science, Real Estate Certificate and California
Real Estate Teachers Credential from UCLA.
