Commercial Appraisal Templates

[Brandon1873]

Does anyone have a commercial appraisal template they wouldn't mind sharing, and or excel file templates?

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

That is pretty generic. Word? WordPerfect? Excel?

 

[Brandon1873]

MS Word

 

[Red Flint]

https://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.naifa...ignation_info/narrative_demo_guidelines_8.pdf

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

I use WordPerfect. But Word is common and you need to learn to write your own templates and merge files. Or buy a narrative report form...I am no fan of those as they tend to be excessively wordy. Most colleges, some VoTech and private firms can teach you basics, which you need to be able to modify someone else's templates. My ex taught word processing Excel, and Database at both a private school and a small University. Classes at night or weekends last a semester or so.. Invest the time, will save you money in the long run. Cut and paste is an awful way to write a narrative.

 

[KHS445]

Take a look at Narrative1. My partner and I have used this service and/or it predecessor for more than 20 years. Not sure what the cost is to new clients, but our recent (6/1/19) renewal was $500 per person. Basics are you enter the majority of the information into an Excel format and then you merge it into your Word template. Very customize-able, good file and comparable storage system and great product support. Most trouble tickets are responded to within an hour or two during normal business hours.

You can develop your own system and if you have those talents great. I don't, and for $500 annually it is not worth my time to learn how and to develop all the templates, trouble shoot merge and software issues, to make sure all necessary/required language and information changes are made, etc. Frankly, I wish I had the talent (probably more an interest) in learning all the ins and outs of Excel and Word.

 

[Michael P Jacobs MAI]

Another vote for Narrative1 here. You can find my detailed experience with it in old threads but to summarize you can begin with their template and customize it over time, or convert yours (or a little of both). Its power is in its engine, which quickly and flawlessly updates narrative and tables from excel to word, among other things.

My N1 template has evolved over many years and adapts on the fly to any property type. Nothing is left of the N1 narrative or tables anymore. For a demanding client, it takes about a day to write two approaches with a simple direct cap cover-to-cover. DCF or complex issues can push it to a little under two. On the other hand, a fee-sensitive bank assignment with one approach only takes a day from early inspection to early afternoon delivery on average, and it's still a relatively beefy report (with content and analysis, shunning boilerplate except where necessary).

I couldn't recommend N1 any higher.

 

[Thomas Holding]

There used to be a series of CDs that you could buy called Appraisal Editor which contained a set of complete narrative reports in Word with templates in Excel for just about every kind of analysis you could think of. I believe it was developed by an MAI. The version I purchased was from 2006 and it was actually a pretty good tool to use to develop my own templates for various property types. See if you can find out who published it. The www.appraisaleditor.com website is no longer up but it might have changed to something else.

 

[Thomas Holding]

You can also use Google to search the web for examples of appraisal reports. Just do a search using the terms "INDEX OF/ appraisal report . pdf. You can find hundreds of reports, usually posted by state and local governments for purchases of public lands, right of ways, or tax appeal cases.

 

[Brandon1873]

Yes we currently have our own report in word format and use excel for the back end. I was trying to locate a shorter or better template. I have also looked into software, which seems to use word and merge excel information automatically.

Thank you for your input,
Brandon

I use WordPerfect. But Word is common and you need to learn to write your own templates and merge files. Or buy a narrative report form...I am no fan of those as they tend to be excessively wordy. Most colleges, some VoTech and private firms can teach you basics, which you need to be able to modify someone else's templates. My ex taught word processing Excel, and Database at both a private school and a small University. Classes at night or weekends last a semester or so.. Invest the time, will save you money in the long run. Cut and paste is a