Narrative Software or Sticking with Word?

[Lonnie Heward]

Datappraise

About a year ago I purchased Datappraise, got sold on it as the sales person was very good. I should have run when the program did not work when they are showing me the demo for the final push to get me over the hump. After the purchase I found the support was terrible, when you call in all they can say is how great it is and all the stuff it does. Jumping from the web to Word to Excel and back again was very frustrating. I have been doing tax appeal appraisals with multiple years, some reports have multiple properties. The program cannot handle this. In addition the servers are always down. In the year I had the program I only completed one full appraisal with the program, the rest were done the old way in word. When my first year was up they sent a bill for $300.00 for the subscription, they seemed very irritated when I questioned what this was for, but had no interest in dealing with my concerns. I will say their PDF insert tool was nice but not worth the cost of the program. Over all I would say save your money and do not purchase this program.

 

[Stone]

I use Word, but had my partner not insisted on it 15 years ago, I'd have stayed with Word Perfect as I liked it better for all types of word processing. I've thought about switching back but that seems like effort (and, I'd have to re-learn some things...).

I cover the whole state and do properties where a database wouldn't be particularly useful. Every sales grid I do is tailored to the specific property so even when re-using a sale, I don't see much benefit there. But, I did like having one when doing residential so if your practice has a lot of sales that are used again and again and sales grids that are at least largely the same, I can see a benefit from auto-populating from a database.

But, like Terrel, I don't see a need for it in my world.

 

[Burney Lightle]

For our reports we use Word and Excel with cells and tables in Excel linked to Word templates...over the years, we have developed several Word templates for the different property types, i.e. agriculture, industrial, Yellow Book, etc.; these are linked to general Excel workbooks that are customized for the specific property types...

I like databases (we use Datacomp for commercial and AgWare Datalog for farmland sales); even though our geographic area involves several states, I find it easier to enter the sale data into database fields than trying to use a word template...also, it makes it easier to find sales when a friend is looking for sales in the database rather than looking through several reports...

I have tried several of the report writing programs; I believe that most are very good, but do seem to take a long time to customize for specialized properties...

 

[kiritf]

I said I like our Datappraise database and it probably might be the best thing for a very large office or multiple offices, but I really liked DataComp and still have it on my local PC. DataComp, as far as I know, is the only DB that I can enter information in and it can spit out an output only with the info I enter. Everything else is not inserted into the comp page. Datappraise is all tagged templates and it is extra work at times with info you don't put in or just plain quirks (they have changed the tags several times for a lot of the inputs and they defunct the old ones, but leaves them in the list of tags....annoying). I switched to Datappraise when we tried DataComp's version that allowed you to vpn in and be connected to a common database. It had major issues and was completely unreliable. They ditched the vpn and tried terminal server... ugh. Terrible. I should have just gotten a local network installation, but I work from home 50% of the time, so it as well had issues unless I remoted my office pc.

Oh, one other thing, DataComp would allow you to print out your sales into a short table...no can do on DP. You can't make an output table.

 

[residentialguy]

Using the extended comments of your 1004, it automatically gives you these heading to write a narrative. You can add more & if you don't type in a section, it doesn't show up on the report. It's a nice natural flow of an appraisal process. You can paste photos, graphs, it them as well. This is also nice because they have comp photo pages, automatic mapping, zoning, etc. Just saying that if you have an appraisal software already for residential, you don't need to purchase database and it's easier and tons more helpful than just using MS word.

SCOPE OF APPRAISAL
.
LEGAL DESCRIPTION
.
DATA ON SUBJECT SALE OFFERINGS
.
ANALYSIS OF SALE CONTRACT
.
LOAN CHARGES AND/OR SALE CONCESSIONS PAID ON BEHALF OF OWNER
.
NEIGHBORHOOD BOUNDARIES
.
NEIGHBORHOOD DESCRIPTION
.
MARKET CONDITIONS
.
ZONING COMPLIANCE
.
HIGHEST AND BEST USE
.
ARE UTILITIES / OFF-SITE IMPROVEMENTS TYPICAL
.
ADVERSE SITE CONDITIONS AND/OR EXTERNAL FACTORS
.
ADDITIONAL FEATURES
.
PROPERTY CONDITION
.
PHYSICAL DEFICIENCIES AND / OR ADVERSE CONDITIONS
.
CONFORMANCE OF PROPERTY TO NEIGHBORHOOD
.
WHY SALE/TRANSFER HISTORY OF COMPS WAS NOT RESEARCHED
.
ANALYSIS OF SALE/TRANSFER HISTORY OF SUBJECT AND COMPS
.
SALES COMPARISON APPROACH
.
RECONCILIATION
.
CONDITIONS OF APPRAISAL
.
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS
.
SUPPORT OF OPINION OF SITE VALUE
.
COMMENTS ON COST APPROACH
.
COMMENTS ON INCOME APPROACH
.
STATUS OF COMPLETION OF PUD COMM. ELEMENTS, REC. FACIL.
.
RENTAL TERMS OF PUD COMMON ELEMENTS AND REC. FACIL.
.
DESCRIPTION OF COMMON ELEMENTS AND REC. FACILITIES
.
EXTRA ADDITIONAL COMMENTS
.

 

[Stone]

Using the extended comments of your 1004, it automatically gives you these heading to write a narrative. You can add more & if you don't type in a section, it doesn't show up on the report. It's a nice natural flow of an appraisal process. You can paste photos, graphs, it them as well. This is also nice because they have comp photo pages, automatic mapping, zoning, etc. Just saying that if you have an appraisal software already for residential, you don't need to purchase database and it's easier and tons more helpful than just using MS word.

SCOPE OF APPRAISAL
.
LEGAL DESCRIPTION
.
DATA ON SUBJECT SALE OFFERINGS
.
ANALYSIS OF SALE CONTRACT
.
LOAN CHARGES AND/OR SALE CONCESSIONS PAID ON BEHALF OF OWNER
.
NEIGHBORHOOD BOUNDARIES
.
NEIGHBORHOOD DESCRIPTION
.
MARKET CONDITIONS
.
ZONING COMPLIANCE
.
HIGHEST AND BEST USE
.
ARE UTILITIES / OFF-SITE IMPROVEMENTS TYPICAL
.
ADVERSE SITE CONDITIONS AND/OR EXTERNAL FACTORS
.
ADDITIONAL FEATURES
.
PROPERTY CONDITION
.
PHYSICAL DEFICIENCIES AND / OR ADVERSE CONDITIONS
.
CONFORMANCE OF PROPERTY TO NEIGHBORHOOD
.
WHY SALE/TRANSFER HISTORY OF COMPS WAS NOT RESEARCHED
.
ANALYSIS OF SALE/TRANSFER HISTORY OF SUBJECT AND COMPS
.
SALES COMPARISON APPROACH
.
RECONCILIATION
.
CONDITIONS OF APPRAISAL
.
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS
.
SUPPORT OF OPINION OF SITE VALUE
.
COMMENTS ON COST APPROACH
.
COMMENTS ON INCOME APPROACH
.
STATUS OF COMPLETION OF PUD COMM. ELEMENTS, REC. FACIL.
.
RENTAL TERMS OF PUD COMMON ELEMENTS AND REC. FACIL.
.
DESCRIPTION OF COMMON ELEMENTS AND REC. FACILITIES
.
EXTRA ADDITIONAL COMMENTS
.

LOL - did you miss both times you posted this advice that it is a CG asking a question in the Commercial/Industrial Appraisals section?

 

[residentialguy]

LOL - did you miss either time you posted this advice that it is a CG asking a question in the Commercial/Industrial Appraisals section?

LOL...no, I didn't. Did you miss the part where you can change the headings? It's like word, except it gives you all the mapping, photo features etc of datappraise?

You can easily set a template for something like this

http://tiny.cc/CommercialAppraisal

 

[Stone]

LOL...no, I didn't. Did you miss the part where you can change the headings? It's like word, except it gives you all the mapping, photo features etc of datappraise?

No commercial appraiser is going to purchase residential software to use an addendum for their narrative reports.

For people who do narratives all the time it would be silly to use a software package like you describe to do their work. That is why I wondered if you missed the topic and the forum. It doesn't make sense in the context of the OP.

 

[Stone]

If someone has residential software, they might consider giving it a try, I suppose, but I still can't imagine it being better than a real narrative program or word document. With dedicated narrative software you get the functionality of a software designed for this purpose. With a word program, anyone can read, edit, etc. and it has a lot more options than an addenda in a software program designed for something else.

 

[residentialguy]

No commercial appraiser is going to purchase residential software to use an addendum for their narrative reports.

Have you ever done residential? I would imagine that you have. I would also bet that you used a residential software. :icon_idea:

I'll spell it out for you. If you already have residential software, (and most CGs I know have) you can use it for commercial. It will give you more features than MS Word.

However, if you want to use word, and do everything manually...maps, photos, etc....be my guest :new_smile-l: