Ron Patton
Sophomore Member
- Joined
- Sep 5, 2004
- Professional Status
- Certified Residential Appraiser
- State
- Tennessee
Regarding Technology
Couple of things: research-research-research before you invest in a notebook with wireless capability. I bought a Verizon wireless card 21 months ago, and it has been pathetically slow. Knowing my contract is just about up, I visited the local store and explained that I really did not plan to renew when contract runs out in 3 months because speed was so slow. Salesman showed me much better, faster wireless cards for notebook. Did some research on internet and found out that the card I had bought was about as bad as you could buy. In spite of all of this, the 1-2 times a month when I have used it, it has saved me from having to make return 40-50 mile trips to find comps. I will renew and will probably buy a new notebook that is more up to date. I have been using a 12" Asus with a 60 Gig hard drive. I paid a premium to get the small footprint, but the reality is that the limited time I use it did not justify the premium price for the smaller footprint. Seem no matter how hard you try to determine what you will be inspecting in the rural part of the adjoining county, the homeowner throws a curve on detail. And comp search starts from scratch after the inspection is complete. With our local MLS, one of the things I have done when I knew internet reception was bad in an area I was going to be working in involved printing all comps in MLS as Adobe PDF files and saving them to a CD and working only with the CD while in the field. Our local MLS has a print limit of between 150-200 files per download, so it often takes a while to prep for the field work. Adobe is a good alternative where there is doubt about the property and bad internet access. I absolutely hate making a second trip back for anything other than absolute high-end properties. SECOND ISSUE: DISTO. I was very skeptical that about ever using one when I bought one 2 years ago, but I can't begin to tell you how invaluable the Disto is. I don't really use it on the outside so much as I do on the inside, except where there are very heavy bushes that I can shoot over and not struggle to work my way through. INSIDE, though, the DISTO is a great time saver for measuring 2-story great room openings (from 2nd story balconies); for precisely laying out rooms on graph paper and making sure that there have been no oversights in the room distribution/count. On the interior, the DISTO can be a great tool for checking dimensions (long hallways + adjoining rooms, etc.) On complex floor plans, the laser speeds the floor plan process greatly. I don't do interior walls except under very unusual circumstances (functional issues, etc.), but my confidence level is greatly increased when I measure all the interior room dimensions (rapidly with the laser) and my floor plan closes and rooms are laid out properly. Call it anal, but I always ask homeowner for bath count, fireplace count and bedroom count in very large homes as a double check against my own notes before I leave. It's called credibility and DISTO makes it a much quicker process on big ticket residences. Now if the market place only would pay for the extra time and effort. Good Luck on your decisions. E-mail me if you have any additional questions. rlpatton@comcast.net Chattanooga
Couple of things: research-research-research before you invest in a notebook with wireless capability. I bought a Verizon wireless card 21 months ago, and it has been pathetically slow. Knowing my contract is just about up, I visited the local store and explained that I really did not plan to renew when contract runs out in 3 months because speed was so slow. Salesman showed me much better, faster wireless cards for notebook. Did some research on internet and found out that the card I had bought was about as bad as you could buy. In spite of all of this, the 1-2 times a month when I have used it, it has saved me from having to make return 40-50 mile trips to find comps. I will renew and will probably buy a new notebook that is more up to date. I have been using a 12" Asus with a 60 Gig hard drive. I paid a premium to get the small footprint, but the reality is that the limited time I use it did not justify the premium price for the smaller footprint. Seem no matter how hard you try to determine what you will be inspecting in the rural part of the adjoining county, the homeowner throws a curve on detail. And comp search starts from scratch after the inspection is complete. With our local MLS, one of the things I have done when I knew internet reception was bad in an area I was going to be working in involved printing all comps in MLS as Adobe PDF files and saving them to a CD and working only with the CD while in the field. Our local MLS has a print limit of between 150-200 files per download, so it often takes a while to prep for the field work. Adobe is a good alternative where there is doubt about the property and bad internet access. I absolutely hate making a second trip back for anything other than absolute high-end properties. SECOND ISSUE: DISTO. I was very skeptical that about ever using one when I bought one 2 years ago, but I can't begin to tell you how invaluable the Disto is. I don't really use it on the outside so much as I do on the inside, except where there are very heavy bushes that I can shoot over and not struggle to work my way through. INSIDE, though, the DISTO is a great time saver for measuring 2-story great room openings (from 2nd story balconies); for precisely laying out rooms on graph paper and making sure that there have been no oversights in the room distribution/count. On the interior, the DISTO can be a great tool for checking dimensions (long hallways + adjoining rooms, etc.) On complex floor plans, the laser speeds the floor plan process greatly. I don't do interior walls except under very unusual circumstances (functional issues, etc.), but my confidence level is greatly increased when I measure all the interior room dimensions (rapidly with the laser) and my floor plan closes and rooms are laid out properly. Call it anal, but I always ask homeowner for bath count, fireplace count and bedroom count in very large homes as a double check against my own notes before I leave. It's called credibility and DISTO makes it a much quicker process on big ticket residences. Now if the market place only would pay for the extra time and effort. Good Luck on your decisions. E-mail me if you have any additional questions. rlpatton@comcast.net Chattanooga
