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Why hire a technically advanced appraiser?
We all know them. The guys with pounds of
silicon hanging from their belts. Every new gadget
that has hit the market in the past 10 years has done
time around their waist. Call them geeks. Call them
nerds. Call them what you will, but by all means, give
them your appraisal business. Why? I'm glad you asked.
Appraisers are, by far, the most technical people
in the real estate world. By necessity, they have been
drawn into the digital world at a pace not seen by
their colleagues. The appraisal process is one that
lends itself to technology. And technology has paid
significant dividends to those appraisers who have
invested in it. These dividends are shared with the
appraiser's customers, in the form of shorter
turn-around times and a much better final valuation
report.
Ordering
Let's start at the beginning. Millions of real estate
transactions are processed each year in the
United States. Almost all of them require some sort of appraisal.
Technology has allowed savvy appraisers to reduce the
amount of work their client's need to order, track and
receive appraisals. In the past, the primary mode of
interaction between an appraiser and his clients was
the telephone and fax machine. Clients would send
requests via fax, and then often follow it up with a
phone call to make sure it was received. Tracking the
progress of the appraisal meant more phone calls - a
disruption for both the client and the appraiser.
But the modern, technologically advanced appraiser
has a better method. Using tools like this web site,
email, and FTP servers just for examples allows
clients to shave valuable time off the process of
ordering, tracking and receiving appraisals. No more
annoying games of phone tag!
Data Gathering
The appraisal process is nothing if not a data
intensive process. Appraisers spend a lot of their
time gathering both specific information about the
subject property and general data about the local
market and developing trends. Once again, technology
has stepped in to help appraisers. In the past, the
physical inspection process has been the time
consuming and difficult. To top it off, appraisers
then had to come back to the office and transcribe
their field notes into the appraisal file itself. No
longer.
Today's digital appraiser has several tools that can
aid in gathering data in the field. Starting with
tools like the Leica Disto Laser meter are making the
measurements more accurate. And laptop computers allow
the appraiser to sketch the building on the fly. All
of this means that the appraiser can get the report
done and delivered to the client in a fraction of the
time it once took.
On the other side of the data gathering coin is the
general data. The Internet has revolutionized the
ability of appraisers to get quality data in a
fraction of the time it once took. Where once an
appraiser would spend hours finding the right location
maps and then rubbing on decals, the modern appraiser
gets his maps with a few mouse clicks, complete with
location markers. And flood maps? Likewise just a few
clicks away using services like a la mode's Interflood.
Standardized addressing, accurate postal coding,
census tract information, are all at their fingertips.
This ensures that the final report is as complete and
accurate as possible, requiring fewer call-backs and
revisions. A real money saver for busy appraisal
clients.
Report delivery
The report is done. Now how is the digital appraiser
going to leverage his investment in technology to
improve the delivery process? Modern appraisers have
forsaken the old print-and-snail mail route for a much
more efficient electronic delivery system. Utilizing
Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF) files, an
appraiser can deliver a complete, multi-page report,
complete with digital photos and maps, through simple
e-mail or FTP (File Transfer Protocol) methods. Now,
instead of waiting for the daily mail, or paying for
expensive courier services, appraisal customers can
simply log into their company email system or log onto
the appraiser's FTP server and retrieve all the
appraisals at one time. Without wasting and paper
printing the appraisal, it can be routed to the
appropriate loan officer or title company in the blink
of an electron.
Digital Workfile
It would be wonderful if appraisers could complete a
report, deliver it and never worry about seeing that
document again. But one of the purposes of an
appraisal is as a legal document outlining the
condition of the property at the time of sale. So
appraisers must keep their reports for 5 years,
allowing them to recall any appraisal at any time to
either defend the valuation or to be used in other
legal proceedings.
Here again, the digital appraiser leverages his
investment in technology to improve service. By
storing every aspect of the appraisal - notes,
sketches, supporting documentation and calculations -
along with the appraisal, the professional is able to
retrieve that report at any time within the five years
and recall just what that report was about. And this
data is not stored in boxes stacked 5 deep in some
rented warehouse. Instead, the digital appraiser uses
technology like CDs, DVDs, Flashcards, or FTPs to
electronically include all supporting documents as
part of the appraisal file. These files are stored
securely on searchable media where the appraiser can
find them in a fraction of the time required in the
past. This helps appraisal clients by giving them
immediate, virtual access to any appraisal they've
ordered within the past 5 years.
These are just a few examples of how
technologically advanced appraisers are improving
the business workflows of their customers. Investing
in the right software, services, gadgets and gizmos
allows the appraiser to deliver reports quicker, more
efficiently and with higher degrees of accuracy. All
of which helps keep the appraiser's costs down, and
save his clients time and money.
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