Eappraiseit Is Giving Away Mercury?

[Ron in AR]

Got an email from Eappraiseit today. Seems they are giving away the first year of Mercury for free.

Surely there is a catch somewhere. I paid Alamode for my first year.

Okay Dave, help me understand this.

 

[Mountain Man]

Ron, I got the e-mail too. Are you using Mercury on a regular basis? Do they charge per appraisal sent? How do they make $$??

 

[Bobby Bucks]

I got the email too. I also got a call from them yesterday. Hell, I don't even use alamode. My cell is ringing now......must be them again.

 

[Ron in AR]

I sent an email to Alamode. Just looking for some explanation. Got one back just a while ago. Seems they entered into an agreement with eAppraiseIT and eAppraiseIT covers the first year of the desktop.

Here's the response I got:

Ron,

For privacy reasons, eAppraisIT did not want to release their list of appraisers to us. Therefore, we have no knowledge of who is or is not working with eAppraiseIT. The agreement eAppraiseIT recommended to us, states that they would cover the first year of the Mercury Desktop membership. This is assuming that an appraiser is not currently using it. Unfortunately because you were an existing Mercury Desktop member, the offer doesn't apply. If you have any further questions please feel free to contact me directly.



Nice of them to respond. I still don't like it that much but I don't think anyone is really gonna give a damn what I like.

Like I told them, I'll remember it the next time Alamode has another one of their offers for me.

 

[Ron in AR]

Leggett - By the way, I have the desktop but the only thing I use it for is to import orders from one client and send them out when I'm done. The thing is that the same clients will accept pdf files so the Mercury desktop is pretty much a redundancy.

I doubt if there is a charge for using it and I doubt if eAppraiseIT (a Client I do like to work for) is paying the same thing I did for all of those first years they're giving away.

It's a great deal for Alamode.

Maybe there's more to it and I just can't see the big picture. Somebody help me here.

 

[Mountain Man]

Researched it a bit today. For what I can tell, it allows the client to receive the appraisal electronically in PDF format. But with Mercury, they can abstract out what they want. I don't want to get into the data mining argument again, but I gotta admit that the abstracting thing bothered me a bit. They take my report, delete the addendums, and required USPAP stuff...... the rules only apply to us. But if I have a true copy in my files, that covers me..... sorry your Honor, but that is not the report I produced.

Anyway, as best I can tell, there is no charge for sending/receiving. Just the yearly subscription cost. But as you mentioned, eAppraiseIt is providing the first year free. Think I'll give it a whirl for a year. We'll see what it cost next year, and up the fees to cover it. Unless eAppraiseIt pays again, then I'll keep charging my regular basic fee.

 

[Carnivore]

My guess is that eappraiseit can not get there regulars to do this conversion because dave charges so much for the upgrade module.

Hey, I paid for it but it wont let me do anything. Keeps saying I need to register. Oh well come time for renewal, 'sing loy'
It sucks when you cant even use it if you wanted to.

One nice thing about this program is that you can advertise your fees at the website, which means my competitors can see it and we can turn it againts the AMC's in our favor.

 

[Jim Bartley]

They sent me a copy as I do some work for them. Setup was effortless and it works fine. WAY better than Lighthouse, which I refuse to use since it doesn't translate all forms in WinTotal. Right after I signed up, I got an order thru Mercury from a new client that will more than pay for next years fee.

 

[Ron in AR]

Ok, somebody tell me. How do you actually get an order through Mercury?