What’s the difference between the Appraisal Today free weekly email newsletters in this blog and the paid monthly newsletter?

In the Free weekly emails, there is a very wide range of topics each week. They are links to online articles with brief excerpts. I write short comments. I get lots of emails with information every day plus blog posts. I look for the most interesting topics and include them. I write the newsletter on Thursday, to go out early Friday morning. I do not typically plan what is in the newsletters. It is very last minute, as I try to make the content as recent as possible, appropriate for a weekly newsletter. Weird homes and properties are typically the most popular topics. Plus business and appraisal “how to” tips. It is advertiser supported.

It is a lot of fun deciding what to put in the newsletter and finding out which topics are the most popular. Hint: weird houses are very popular. USPAP is not very popular, but I put it in so you know what is happening.

I started the free email newsletter in 1994 with 4 subscribers. Bruce Hahn still subscribes. It is advertiser supported.  One of my first advertisers was Liability Insurance Administrators, who runs an ad in every email.

The paid monthly newsletters are totally different. They are typically about a few appraisal and business topics. I sometimes work on an article idea for several years before finally writing up an article. I do the research and writing plus have guest authors. They are 12 to 17 pages long and take a long time to write up. Since they are in PDF format, the newsletters can be any length. I have never taken ads.

The paid newsletter was started in June, 1992 with 250 subscribers, starting in print and shifting to PDF in 2008. There have never been any ads.

The paid newsletter started as a printed newsletter in 1992. The 12-18+ pages are print style PDFs with 3 columns and wordprocessing (1 column) formats. The articles are much longer than this email, from 1 to 8 (or more) pages for each topic.

Everything is original, not just a link. Most of the articles are written by myself, but I have always had contributors. I like to write about business topics, so there are lots of marketing, etc. articles. When there are hot topics, such as CU, AMCs, etc. I write about them. Plus other appraisal related topics, mostly done by contributors.

Ever since I got my MBA in 1980, I look at everything from a business point of view. I had been appraising for 5 years at that time, but never took even a basic economics class. I needed to learn more bout business to be a better appraiser. For unknown reasons I don’t like to write about appraisal topics, although I love discussing them with other appraisers!!

I never run out of topics to write about. I regularly get ideas by communicating with other appraisers by phone or email.

If there is a topic you would like to read about, send an email to ann@appraisaltoday.com

Ann O’Rourke, MAI, SRA, MBA Appraiser and Publisher Appraisal Today 2033 Clement Ave. Suite 105 Alameda, CA 94501 Phone 510-865-8041 Fax 510-523-1138 Email   ann@appraisaltoday.com www.appraisaltoday.com