“If people are informed they will do the right thing. It’s when they are not informed that they become hostages to prejudice.” Charlayne Hunter-Gault

For this post, I’m going to put in a brief word about my pet project, InformedAppraiser.com.

It goes without saying that the internet has changed the way appraisers work. Virtually all of the information an appraiser could possibly need can now be obtained via online sources. This is a good thing, of course. The flip side is that the old problem of “too little information” has been replaced with a new version - “too much information”.

Several years ago, I found my Favorites list (actually, Bookmarks list, since I use Firefox) growing too big for its own good. It got to the point where I’d have to scroll through hundreds of links to find what I wanted in any particular situation. Various attempts at organizing my Bookmarks proved fruitless. I figured that I couldn’t be the only appraiser facing this annoyance, and that there had to be a better way.

To that end, I developed InformedAppraiser.com. This website is essentially a database of websites that are of interest to appraisers. You simply select the type of information or resource you need, specify the location (if relevant), and presto - you are presented with a detailed list of links to websites that should be relevant to your interests. Best of all, I designed the site so that anyone can submit additional websites to the database with relative ease, a la Wikipedia. Users can also post comments regarding any website in the database to share their thoughts and insights with fellow appraisers. To top it all off, it’s 100% free (hey, it works for Google, right?).

Until next time, happy appraising, and stay informed!