The next step needed to improve the integrity of values in appraisal management is a set of scores for not only the valuations themselves, but also appraisers and specific areas, according to Phil Huff, CEO, Platinum Data Solutions. “That’s the big deal for us in 2012,” he said.
The company, founded by former appraiser Rocky Donathan, just rolled out a “quantitative score” for the value, said Huff, who joined the company earlier this year. He said an appraiser score is “months away” and lastly the company plans to produce a neighborhood score.
Among other thing the scores should help with fraud prevention efforts, he said.
Many scams involve the repeated use of an appraiser or Realtor in a certain area, something that can be “hard to see without a system” that can show such patterns, said Huff.
In addition to the need to mitigate fraud and regulatory risks, a large catalyst for making sure values are accurate is repurchase prevention. This is, he said, “a huge concern. It’s probably the No. 1 concern.”
As a result, “all eyes are on collateral valuation. It’s probably the single most important thing that a lender can do to lessen their chances of buybacks and improve their quality.”
To Huff’s mind, the challenge in addressing this is not only the aforementioned risks but the need for flexible workflow to keep up with a part of the business fraught with regulatory and other types of change.
So on top of the amalgamation of public record and multiple listing service data the company supplements with its own information, the company strives to ensure the rules engine technology it released last year can be adjusted as needed, he said.
Huff said this flexibility, combined with PDS’s independence in terms of its lack of ties to a particular data provider or automated valuation model, are among the features that help distinguish it.
Other vendors have rules engines but Huff said he believe his company can make changes more quickly than some others.
“You can make changes to our rules engine in a matter of hours,” he said.
