Do you type your reports on a typewriter?
I know a guy who does. I don't think he even owns a computer. He has one regular client that loves his work, and sometimes snags a job from other local banks and every now and then from an individual.
He gives up some things that are really important to me. He has to have his ducks in a row before typing the report and cannot easily edit. He has to use printed MLS data and can't get the very latest stuff. He has to get his photos processed at Wal-Mart, which is probably his biggest expense (he sometimes shoots polaroids-- even more costly).
He also gains some things. His thought process has to be organized and he never has an appraisal error caused by clicking the wrong field. He does a report in about the same six to eight hours it takes me for a standard 1004. However, he pays nothing for internet service. He has only one phone bill - $30, more or less. He never has to buy software. He doesn't spend any time at all maintaining his computer or backing it up. His accounting system is pretty complex: he puts unpaids in one file and marks them paid and moves them to another file when the check comes in. At the end of the year he piles the whole mess into a banker's box.
He doesn't make as much money as I do, but he doesn't have nearly as much aggravation, either. His reports are not as slick looking as mine and there isn't as much explanation (you might call it "self-containededness") in his summary form as in mine, but his clients don't seem to mind. His work appears to be USPAP compliant and his values seem to be solid as well as I can tell. I guess there's more than one way to skin a cat.
To get back on topic, I used to have a great little program I loved called "Floorplan Plus." I bought it for $40 and it would do everything I needed. Clients were always commenting on how much better my drawings were than most of the competition. It was a DOS program, but ran all right under Win 3.1. When I switched to Win 98 it wouldn't run anymore. I cannot open those files now, and have to rely on my hard copy if I want to see something I drew back in those years. (Did those of you who do EDI and don't print out a copy read that last sentence? Maybe you'd better go back and read it again.)
Anyway, lately I've been using WinSketch and I hate it. Oh, it's faster than the old program, but it has too many drawbacks. Think I'll try APEX, it seems to be the program of choice on this thread.
Go ahead and hand draw them if you want to, William. But, I suspect that if you start doing it electronically, you'll become addicted just like the rest of us.
