The pace of change in the real estate lending industry has accelerated dramatically and factors such as interest rates, industry regulations and audits are forces beyond a lenders’ control. Combine these with the daily pressures of retaining consumer business, accelerating loan cycle times, and improving profitability, many real estate lenders face sleepless nights.
In this blog, we explore four topics lenders tell us are keeping them up at night – and offer solutions to help alleviate the concerns.
- Missed opportunities for new business and market expansion. The combination of an urban exodus, consumers seeking better work-from-home options and a lack of housing inventory are challenging lenders to become more agile. Lenders stuck in a status quo mindset are losing business to more visionary lenders who are implementing cloud-based appraisal management technology and improved processes to tap into new markets and better serve their clients. To keep pace, lenders should be open minded about exploring new technologies to accelerate loan cycle times, improve property valuations and expand title and closing services.
- Data accuracy jeopardizes business success and consumer satisfaction. If your business is collecting data from multiple sources such as email, spreadsheets, and applications to complete the appraisal process, human error is bound to happen. This adds unnecessary risk to your business. Leveraging multiple systems and processes to manage your appraisal management function isn’t scalable or sustainable, so it’s time to start evaluating appraisal management technology to find a platform that fits your business needs. A single appraisal management technology platform orchestrates the appraisal process from start to finish and enables collaboration among all stakeholders – including the consumer. With process automation and end-to-end visibility throughout the process, you can expect significant improvements in data accuracy, appraisal quality and appraisal turn times.
- Time and money wasted on cumbersome processes. Often appraisal processes have devolved into a tangled web of emails, text messages, one-off chats and document sharing. As a result, tracking, reporting on and fulfilling an appraisal order becomes overly complex and time-consuming. By removing the costly administrative overhead of appraisal management from your people and implementing an appraisal management technology platform, you free up time and money to redirect to new products and services to attract and retain consumers. Appraisal management technology can automate the entire lifecycle of an appraisal order, including appraiser selection, order status reporting and vendor payment – and provide central visibility across the entire appraisal process.
- Regulatory compliance. Without compliance, your business is at risk. Lenders without a proper appraisal management technology platform in place to track and manage compliance are likely waking up in the middle of the night worrying about the what ifs. Managing appraisal licensing, E&O insurance and appraisal scoring can all be done with an appraisal management system – rather than those dreaded spreadsheets circulating around your business. Business rules you configure allow for real-time compliance checks on appraisal updates and reduces the number of revisions. In addition, you’ll have instant access to history, so if you find yourself being audited, you can easily provide the documentation necessary to demonstrate compliance.
Rest assured.
Many of the issues keeping lenders up at night can be solved with a technology-driven approach to appraisal management. Whether you’re struggling with one, two or all four of the worries listed above, the right appraisal management technology platform can help you leverage process automation to manage the full lifecycle of your appraisal management function – freeing you of these burdens.
It’s time to shake up the status quo and get on board with appraisal management technology. To get started, download our whitepaper, “Choosing the Right Appraisal Management Technology”.