Our founder and Chairman, Dave Biggers, wrote an article that was published in the current issue of Working RE Magazine. It's called After the boom:  Surviving and thriving in any market, and it may be the most important article you read this year.

Dave Biggers wrote another article for a 2006 issue of Working RE called Appraising your Business: How to Succeed by Setting Yourself Apart

For more information and ideas, visit our Appraiser Marketing page.

As a residential appraiser, you already own the copyright to your work, under federal law. Lenders, management companies and data resellers who have stripped your analysis, descriptions and opinions from your reports since then have been engaging in data theft. There is a way to stem this tide — not necessarily stop it, but be adequately compensated for it if you choose to do so.

The ultimate goal of the effort to get a small but significant percentage of appraisal reports registered with the U.S. Copyright Office is not to shut off the spigot of valuation information. The goal is to correct a glaring inefficiency in the market for appraisal data — namely, that you as an appraiser are not being compensated for your intellectual property.

The protection of your rights starts with you. Learn and understand your rights, and most importantly, exercise them. You value property belonging to others everyday; place a value on your own intellectual property assets.