7 Ways Real Estate Appraisers Can Use Evernote

Evernote is a “Remember Everything” application that works on a desktop (Mac and PC), a mobile phone (Android, Blackberry, Palm Pre, and iPhone), and over the web.  Evernote is great for taking notes but two of its best features are that 1) it processes each image so you can search for text inside of photographs and 2) it can geotag a photo note taken with your cell phone.

You can use Evernote to store anything you might want to remember later; grab whiteboards in meetings, take photos of business cards, or help you do research.  It is something that might change the way you take notes after you start to use it.  Evernote syncs to all of your computers and you can access it from any web browser.  Since Evernote synchronizes regularly, you don’t have to worry about losing data if your computer crashes or you need to reinstall the software.

How can a Real Estate Appraiser use Evernote?

1) Store your appraisal files with the web clipper

I print less as my office becomes paperless.  One option for a paperless office is to use Evernote to clip web pages you need to save.  You can create a new notebook for each appraisal file or tag the clipped page with the appraisal file number or address.  Click here to learn about the web clipper.  There is a Firefox web clipper add-on and a Chrome web clipper extension.

2) Take pictures of business cards

I collect a lot of business cards from Realtors, Builders, and Loan Officers.  I keep track of my business cards with Evernote.  I take a photo of the business card with my iPhone, tag it, and save it.  Evernote makes it easy to search for photo notes because it processes each image so you can search for text inside of the image.

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3) Track your expenses

I use Evernote to help me track my business expenses.  I take a photo of the receipt and sometimes the item, tag it, and save it.

4) Organize ideas for your blog

I use the web clipper to clip articles or images that I might reference in my real estate blog.  Evernote helps me keep all of my blog post ideas organized.

5) Store software keys

I don’t buy much software for my business or personal use but when I do, I use Evernote to store all of software keys.  Most of the software keys I have are emailed to me when I buy the software.  I just forward that email to Evernote to be saved.

6) Track your greatest tweets

You can send Evernote public or private tweets.  To use Twitter with Evernote, first follow @myen and it will automatically follow you back.  Add @myen to your tweets and they will be saved to your Evernote account.  If you find something you want to retweet and save, add @myen to the tweet.  If you want to send Evernote a private note, you can do that too by sending them a direct message in Twitter.  If a tweet that you send to Evernote contains a Twitpic URL, a thumbnail of the photo will show up in Evernote along with a link to the original image.  I use Evernote with TweetDeck for my iPhone to save some my favorite tweets and links.

7) Research for a purchase or project

Looking to buy a new digital camera?  Use Evernote to help you research cameras and keep all of the information organized.  Use the web clipper to clip web pages of products you are interested in.

Evernote has a great article on how to use it while house hunting: Use Evernote For House Hunting.

How Else do I use Evernote?

1) I am not a wine aficionado by any means, but my wife and I like to try new wines.  I take a photo note of the wines that we liked.

2) I regularly donate to Goodwill.  Goodwill gives you a receipt that you can use for charitable deductions when you file your taxes.  I date the receipt and make a note of what I donated but also take a photo of the items that were donated and tag them in Evernote.

3)  When I travel by plane or just park in a huge parking lot, I take of photo of the section I parked it and save it in Evernote.  Evernote will geotag the photo which makes it very easy to find my car.

4) I take photos of recipes that I want to remember.

5) I take photos of instructions that I might need later.  I bought a new vacuum cleaner the other day.  I didn’t want to keep the entire instruction manual but there were two pages I thought I might want to reference later so I took a photo of those two pages and saved them in Evernote.

Visit Evernote’s website to learn more.  There are Free and Premium accounts.  The free account lets you upload 40 MB of notes.  The pro account costs $5 pre month and lets you upload 500 MB per month.

Posted by Bryan McDonald (Follow him on Twitter)

Tagged as: Evernote, Iphone Apps, Productivity