appraisal education

Knowing Is Half the Battle

In the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the State of Idaho shut down, my company and I took a remote appraisal assignment. Because of the local stay-at-home order, we ended up having the borrower take the interior photographs of this property. He grumbled and complained, but eventually did as we asked. A short while […]

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Recipe for Perfect Customer Service

 I’m not the biggest dessert person in the world, but I have a weakness for Arnold Palmers. For those of you unfamiliar with what an Arnold Palmer is, it’s a drink that is half iced tea and half lemonade. I love it because the sweetness of the lemonade is cut by the iced tea, while

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Connecting With Agents

When it comes to getting business, a lot of us like to go for the “low-hanging fruit.” AMCs are a wonderful source of that “easy to get” business. They’ve been the “bread and butter” of my appraisal business for years. But, as the saying goes, it can be wise to make sure that you don’t

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When There’s No Comparison

If you’ve been a part of the appraisal world for long, you’ve had this experience. You’ve just submitted a completed report that you feel pretty good about. Soon afterward, however, you are contacted by an underwriter requesting that you look at some additional “comps” for use in your report. What do you do? Let’s briefly

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Less Isn’t Always More

I’ve been asked how much should be filled out on site during a mobile appraisal. I know there’s a lot of ways out there to do this; there are almost as many methods out there as there are appraisers. My way certainly isn’t the only way to do things, but it’s the way that I’ve

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Smart Inspections

I was recently contacted by an individual with a question. This woman said that she has been using an iPad for years to do her mobile inspections, but had heard that I use my iPhone, and was wondering how that worked. I’ve heard this question repeated several times: can I use my smartphone for inspections?

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Love What You Do, Do What You Love

Imagine yourself on a crisp sunny day in February bombing down a hill of fresh powder in your new skis… can you picture it? Or maybe instead of shredding the mountain, you’d rather take an evening of roasting marshmallows on the beach with the people you love. Moments and memories like these are what we

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Stop Putting it Off!

A couple years ago, I was out skiing with my boys, something I try to do once a week during the winter. We had a great time, but at one point during our trip I found myself going off a jump, and landed badly. I didn’t lose my footing, but I didn’t jump far enough

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The Path to Credibility

  I was recently proofreading a paper my son had written for a class and came across a quote from Benjamin Franklin. My son used quotation marks to offset the words of Franklin, but had no other reference. This led to a discussion about the importance of being able to reference our information, and the

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Where is Your Focus?

While getting ready for a big trip with my wife, I found myself in my home office working some odd hours. I was in the zone, cruising through my to-do list, and I felt good about everything that I was getting done. At one point during my work, my 12-year-old son came to me and

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