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Why Hire Us?
Why hire us?
Because
as this web site indicates, we are technologically advanced over many other appraisers.
Appraisers
are, by far, the
most technical agents 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 - complete with the ability to
order appraisals on-line
- allows clients to shave valuable
time off the process of ordering and tracking appraisals. Technologies
like this web site
are advancing this concept even
further, giving its users the ability to order appraisals online, and
track their progress
by e-mail all the way until
delivery. 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
home 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. 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. 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. Now, instead
of waiting for the daily mail, or
paying for expensive courier services, appraisal customers can simply
log into their company
email system 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 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 web sites, the right software,
services, gadgets and gizmos allows the appraiser to deliver your
reports quicker, more
efficiently and with higher degrees
of accuracy. All of which helps keep the appraiser's costs down, and
save you time and
money.
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