Wow, did I learn a lot over the 3 day alamode convention.  The 2nd day I mostly learned some advanced techniques for using my WinTOTAL appraisal software, including marketing, XSite maintenance, on-line order management and bringing it all together for an efficient workflow.  The 3rd day I learned how to make pivot tables and graphs in Excel.  This will make it easier to visually display housing market analysis for clients, which is becoming increasingly more in demand by lenders and Fannie Mae is expected to announce a new 1 page legal form as early as October which will include Housing Market Analysis.  This form will be apparently be required to be included with appraisal reports by March 1, 2009.  Alamode already has a form for this, so our clients can look forward to seeing more of these types of graphs and tables in our reports very soon.

I was invited to speak in a Real Estate Finance Class tomorrow at Long Beach City College.  I'm looking forward to sharing all the latest in the appraisal industry with the class.  I did this last semester and it was a lot of fun!