Accuracy means efficiency. Efficiency is paramount in the world of appraisal management—both from a client perspective and for an appraisal management company (AMC) itself. This is because an AMC without an efficient set of processes must continually reject an appraisal before it’s ready for submittal and approval. But lag time leads to lost time, and continual revisions means the appraisal product has undergone multiple touches. And all of this combined can lead to additional costs—both for the appraisal company and for the clients themselves.
An AMC with an established set of processes, both efficient and effective, typically strives for as few touches as possible on an appraisal product. These top tier AMCs will commonly deliver successful reports at a one touch rate, thereby allowing clients to proceed in their transaction without headaches and delays. But how do you know if an AMC has a QC process capable of reducing touches and thereby limiting rejections? How can you tell if an AMC follows processes that will ensure your appraisal is accurate and compliant?
AMCs that possess the following traits are likely more capable of producing high quality appraisals that lead to fewer touches:
1. An Understanding of Your Needs
An AMC, before it does anything, should fully comprehend the needs and wants of its clients. Understanding the intricacies related to the reports being requested, be it a desk review, full appraisal or other valuation product, is a crucial first step in the QC process. Without such an inquiry prior to delivery, it’s difficult for an AMC to truly solve and produce reports with limited touches. Setting up expectations on the front end allows an AMC to communicate to its appraisers exactly what you want, which in turn reduces the likelihood of rework and limits touches.
2. Experienced and Accurate Appraisers
Everything has a rating today – does your appraiser? Make sure that your AMC scores their appraisers based on quality, and directs work to appraisers with the highest quality scores. Also, an AMC with experienced in-house staff appraisers to review reports helps alleviate any gaps and can truly ensure that the story behind the value being represented is reconciled, supported and spelled out in the final report.
3. Unique and Customizable Rule Sets/Processes
An AMC should recognize that every client has requirements that are unique. As a result, these requirements call for customizable processes and client specific rule sets in order to produce successful reports with limited touches.
4. A Strong Foundation of Institutional Knowledge
Above anything, an AMC should possess a strong foundational knowledge of what is required to produce a good report. Without this strong foundation, an AMC has no reliable starting point when developing the aforementioned client-specific processes. Significant depth of experience goes hand in hand in with implementing a customized pre-delivery QC rule set.
5. Calibration that Leads to Consistency
An experienced AMC will analyze and understand every appraisal that comes through the door and review accordingly, whether through a checklist or scoring process. In addition to checking for accuracy, this allows an AMC to understand trends, which in turn leads to key takeaways and learning opportunities on how to make the process better. Identifying trends related to revisions, both from field appraisers and clients themselves, leads to a continuous improvement cycle that drives performance and leads to less touches.
Contact us today to learn how SVI strives each and every day to offer its clients a transparent process that is efficient and effective, and most importantly meets all of our industry’s requirements in a complex regulatory environment.
