Appraisers! Save your Pictures! In Fact Save Everything!

I have been appraising for 23 years now. I started in January 2003 during the mortgage boom. At the time, I transitioned the appraisal company I was working for from 35mm cameras to Kodak DC210 digital cameras, one of the first models out there.

For probably the last 15 years, I’ve used my phone or my tablet to take pictures, no more digital cameras. And, since then, I’ve saved every picture I’ve taken on the job in the cloud. I never want to be without the original photos I took in case a question comes up later.

In the last 5 years, I’ve had two clients contact me for my photos due to a fire at their location that I had previously appraised. The first was an office building in Jeffersonville, Indiana, that burned the weekend after I viewed it.

The second was a large historic home and wedding venue that burned a few months after I appraised it. In both instances, my photos were the most recent and complete set of pictures that the owners could send to their insurance company.

In today’s cloud environment, there is no reason to ever delete anything. Trust me, the Internet is forever anyway. So, keep your pictures, keep your notes, and your workfiles…….forever.