Why hire a technically advanced appraiser

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 us to reduce the amount of work our client's need to order, track and receive appraisals. In the past, the primary mode of interaction between an appraiser and the client 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 in this modern era, 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 a la mode's net.X network are advancing this concept even further, giving its users the ability to not only order appraisals, but track their progress 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 many tools that can aid in gathering data in the field.  This all means that the appraiser can get the report done and delivered to the you in a fraction of the time, that 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 all necessary information to complete the appraisal, we can now get all our information with a few mouse clicks, complete with location markers. 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. By utilizing Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF) files, we 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. If the client requests to have the appraisal report returned to them via US Postal service or courier, we certainly can do that as well. 

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.

These are just a few examples of how technologically advanced appraisers are improving the business workflows of their customers. This allows us to deliver reports quicker, more efficiently and with a higher degree of accuracy.  All of which helps keep our costs down, and save you time and money.