Ohio-based CU Appraisal Services has announced that partial ownership shares of the company have been acquired by CU Advantage, Inc. This makes CU Appraisal Services the first and only appraisal management company in the country to become a Credit Union Service Organization (CUSO), the company stated. Only companies who do business exclusively with credit unions are eligible to become a CUSO.
Executive Chairman Ron Stickelman founded CU Appraisal Services in 2012 to support the credit union industry. In 2000, after running Stickelman and Associates (the sixth largest appraisal firm in the country) for more than 20 years, Stickelman said he recognized that credit unions were the most responsible lenders in the mortgage industry.
“Our competitors are generally large, impersonal, organizations – focused on serving the banking industry (and the banking industry business model),” Stickelman said in a press release. “Credit unions are an afterthought to them. We are an agile company, who is able nurture very personalized and focused relationships with our credit union partners – an extension of the credit unions’ philosophy of collaboration and community-building.”
In addition to helping credit unions grow their share of the mortgage market, CU Appraisal Services is actively working to evaluate, develop and implement strategies to address the growing appraiser shortage issue.
“When we first decided to open the company to partial credit union ownership, we knew we were breaking new ground and it would be a challenge,” CU Appraisal Services President, John Theobald said. "But it has been great for us in a number of ways. The process helped us bring our business into sharper focus than ever before, and has helped us refine processes to make us an even tighter running machine."